The Implementation of Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS) in Iran's Universities of Medical Sciences: A Systematic Review

Assessment is a fundamental part of medical education. A good method to assess students, besides being valid and reliable, should have a positive impact on students’ learning, be applicable and acceptable to both teachers and students. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to review the results of implementation of Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS) at Iran’s universities of medical sciences.
In this systematic review, the keywords direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS), medical science, clinical skills, assessment, and practical assessment were used to find all of the related studies published from 2000 onwards in Magiran, SID, and Google Scholar search engine.
The preliminary search yielded 226 papers. A total of 164 papers were left after excluding the duplicates. By reading the titles and abstracts, 152 papers were also excluded and 12 papers were reviewed at the end. Five papers examined students’ attitudes and satisfaction with DOPS, two papers addressed the validity and reliability of DOPS, four papers explored the effect of DOPS on learning clinical skills, and one paper compared the effects of DOPS and mini CEX with the traditional method on learning.
The results of the reviewed papers support the positive effects of assessing medical sciences students’ performance by DOPS. Accordingly, it is suggested that teachers should employ this method to assess students’ clinical performance.