Station 3: The Examiner

Local training for examiners

Many medical schools provide face-to-face or online examiner training materials prior to the exam, to allow new examiners to familiarise themselves with the assessment procedures before attending. It is worth checking local policies for this.

Examiner briefing

On the day of the assessment, all schools have an examiner briefing that takes place immediately before the exam, usually hosted by an academic member of staff from the Medical School. All examiners should attend this briefing so that they are as prepared as possible for the format of the assessment and have a full understanding of the mark scheme. Medical Schools do make changes to exam formats and to the general organisation of the exam, so even if you are an experienced examiner, this information will be available at the briefing.

At the station

After the briefing, you will be shown to your station. You will be provided with all relevant materials including the student task, the mark sheets and an outline of the aims of the station. In some schools, they will provide you with the standards required for a passing student, a borderline student or a failing student, to help you complete the mark sheet.

Familiarise yourself with the mark sheet, its layout and the marking criteria before the assessment begins and ask the exam lead if you have any queries.

After the briefing, you will be shown to your station.If you are placed on a station with a patient, then you will need to spend some time examining the patient and deciding what clinical findings you would expect a passing candidate to pick up when they carry out their examination. It is helpful to think about what a borderline candidate and failing candidate might or might not pick up as well. This is called calibrating and is an important aspect of the reliability of the exam as examiners must remain consistent in their scoring throughout the assessment.

There will be some examiners who are “Hawks” (those who are stringent markers) and those who are “Doves” (examiners who are more lenient). You must remain consistent throughout the exam and don’t change your criteria for assessment half way through. The candidate is seen by a number of different examiners, which evens this potential bias out.

Please do make sure that your mobile phone is switched off at all times. Any ringing or vibrating during the exam can be extremely off-putting for the candidate and can be a cause for student appeal.

During the exam

Examiners should remain attentive at all times and carefully observe the behaviours of the candidates as they pass through your station.Examiners should remain attentive at all times and carefully observe the behaviours of the candidates as they pass through your station. Please make sure that you check the candidate's identifier when they enter the station to make sure that you fill in the correct mark sheet.

Where possible, examiners should take a neutral role during the encounter. This means that examiners should not engage with the candidate other than to check their examination identifier and should remain passive throughout, without coaching the candidate and without confirming the diagnosis with them.

There may be some candidates passing through your station, who you have met on clinical placements. Please ensure consistency by marking them based on their performance in the station on the day, and not on their performance during their placement with you. If you believe that there may be a conflict of interest, then please let exam organisers know once the exam is completed.

The good examiner

  • Arrives on time for the examiner briefing at the beginning of the session
  • Is familiar with the mark sheet and the examiner instructions (has attended the correct training and briefing prior to the exam)
  • Examines the patient to confirm the findings
  • Scores consistently
  • Keeps the mark sheets hidden from the candidate
  • Attentive at all times during the station
  • Avoids gestures or prompting during the station
  • Takes on a neutral role and doesn’t communicate with the candidate to confirm or refute a diagnosis
  • Mark the student on the day – not what you know about them already
  • Moves the candidate on to the next station promptly when the bell goes.
  • Highlights any concerns over professionalism
  • Makes appropriate written feedback comments about candidate performance and about the assessment organisation itself (it is important to check with local procedures for this as some schools prefer separate feedback)

After the exam

Do spend some time checking through your mark sheets to ensure that you have filled them in correctly. The exam organisers would appreciate your feedback on the running of the assessment as well as the station itself, to help improve the quality of the assessment in the future. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t discuss the exam with candidates after the assessment is completed.