Use of interactive oral assessment to increase workplace readiness of occupational therapy students

Interactive oral assessment has been identified as a form of authentic assessment that enables students to develop their professional identity, communications skills, and helps promote employability (Sotiriadou et al., 2020). It simulates authentic scenarios where assessors can engage students in genuine and unscripted interactions that represents workplace experiences (Sotiriadou et al., 2020). Unlike written examinations, interactive oral questions are not rigidly standardised as students and assessors role-play using workplace scenarios, enabling students to respond to the conversational flow and achieve authenticity (Tan et al., 2021). Using Villarroel et al. (2018) four-step ‘Model to Build Authentic Assessment’, this paper will present the use of oral interactive with first year occupational therapy students. This is within the context of a module named “Occupational Performance Across Lifespan” and students learn about children’s developmental milestones.