Competency development in early nursing training: a cross-sectional OSCE study of self-assessment versus examiner ratings

First-year nursing students calibrated well in technical and analytical skills but overestimated interpersonal communication. In SRL terms, transparent checklist criteria support monitoring, whereas implicit interpersonal standards are harder to judge. Age, rather than gender or prior healthcare training, was associated with smaller social-domain gaps. These findings align with prior work and point to interpersonal competence as a cross-disciplinary calibration challenge. Feasible, theory-aligned steps, facilitated video review against checklists, standardized vignette calibration with expert anchors, and pre- to post-feedback self-ratings, should be piloted and evaluated longitudinally before broader adoption.