The competency assessment survey conducted in 2013 in universities and regional health science colleges. The study has a total of 606 sample sizes and data were gathered at 9 universities and 17 regional health science colleges (RHSCs) located in seven of Ethiopia’s nine regions and one of its two city administrations. Quantitative data were obtained from structured interviews with students on the learning environment and direct observations of student performance on an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Student participants included 484 midwifery graduates from 25 training programs and 122 anesthesia graduates from 6 training programs. Qualitative data came from 93 in-depth interviews with instructors, skills lab assistants, and preceptors (75 associated with midwifery programs and 18 with anesthesia programs) in 26 training institutions. Data were collected in June-July 2013 after students had completed their final exams. There were two sources of data: structured interviews with students and direct observations of student performance. During a private, 15-minute interview, assessors gathered information about students’ background characteristics, including gender and age, and then posed 12 questions about their experience in the classroom, the skills lab, and the clinical practice sites to assess perceptions of the learning environment. Double data entry, cleaning, and analysis were conducted using CSPro 5.0 and SPSS 20 Software. Assumptions regarding normal distributions and outliers were checked before applying statistical analysis. Separate bivariate and multivariable linear regressions were conducted to identify factors predicting the competence of midwifery and anesthesia students. The dependent variable was the summary score from the OSCE. Potential predictors included student gender and age, type of training institution, perceptions of the learning environment, and the number of births attended or endotracheal intubations performed. Midwifery students scored over 60% on four skills: active management of the third stage of labor, clinical decision-making skills in family planning provision, assisting normal delivery, and postpartum care. Anesthesia students performed even better, scoring over 60% on six skills: spinal anesthesia, neonatal resuscitation, endotracheal intubation, laryngeal mask airway insertion check, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and chest examination.

• Competencies
• Assessment
• students
• Midwifery
• Anesthesia
• Universtiees
• Ethiopia
• cross sectional

Not suggested

In the year where the study was conducted, a total of 31 universities and 25 RHSCs in the public sector were engaged in health science training in Ethiopia. However, this study was limited to institutions that graduated students in midwifery and/or anesthesia training programs in 2013. Twenty universities and 22 RHSCs offered pre-service education for midwives in 2013, but 12 of the universities did not graduate any midwifery students in 2013 and were therefore excluded from the study. Five RHSCs were excluded because of inaccessibility, inadequate information on graduation status, or the unavailability of students. Data were collected in June-July 2013 after students had completed their final exams. There were two sources of data: structured interviews with students and direct observations of student performance. During a private, 15-minute interview, assessors gathered information about students’ background characteristics, including gender and age, and then posed 12 questions about their experience in the classroom, the skills lab, and the clinical practice sites to assess perceptions of the learning environment. Double data entry, cleaning, and analysis were conducted using CSPro 5.0 and SPSS 20 Software. Assumptions regarding normal distributions and outliers were checked before applying statistical analysis. Separate bivariate and multivariable linear regressions were conducted to identify factors predicting the competence of midwifery and anesthesia students. The dependent variable was the summary score from the Objective Structured Clinical ExaminationOSCE. Potential predictors included student gender and age, type of training institution, perceptions of the learning environment, and the number of births attended or endotracheal intubations performed.

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