Validity and Reliability of a Clinical Performance Examination using Standardized Patients

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the validity of a modified clinical performance examination (CPX) for preclinical students in nursing. Method: 70 nursing students in their second semester of the junior year at C University participated in CPX. Scenarios and checklists were developed by our research team from September to October 2005. Six stations were organized. Evaluation included physical examination of a patient with lung cancer, education on usage of a metered dosage inhaler, and lobectomy postoperative care. Students were randomly assigned to a station. Result: There was a difference in the CPX scores according to stations. The agreement of scoring between trained faculty mem-bers and SPs was more than moderate (r=.647). The correlation between the CPX score and the average grade in the previous semester and between the CPX score and the average grade of a paper and pen test of the pulmonary system of adults was low (r=.276; r=.048). Conclusion: Traditional CPX is generally recommended, however, modified CPX is appropriate for preclinical students in the current Korean Nursing school setting if there are additional scoring systems t