Can communication skills be assessed independently of their context?

In many examinations, communication skills tend to be treated as if they are a single attribute independent of the context of the communication. However, it is clear that such assessments are confounded by candidates' knowledge or lack of knowledge of the medical issues about which they are communicating. In the 1990 Part One examination for Membership of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners candidates were provided with all the essential knowledge relevant to the problem they were to communicate about. Despite this, performance was still seen to be context specific, demonstrating that such specificity is not purely knowledge related. Candidates completing the examination were observed to share information about the cases with candidates about to commerce. There was no evidence that performance was enhanced by such breaches in examination security.