Current practices in admission interviews at U.S. medical schools

Johnson, Erlend; Edwards, Janine C.

doi:10.1097/00001888-199107000-00008

Cited by 46 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…1,3,5,8 Categories of ethical questions, illegal questions, and conversational questions were added in order to fully explicate the purposes of the interview. The final categories were as follows: Verification and clarification of application-related information, Assessment of personal, interpersonal, and other non-cognitive characteristics, Assessment of academic and general knowledge and cognitive ability, Ethical viewpoints and decision-making, Illegal/inappropriate questions, Conversational and non-medical questions/comments, and Recruitment.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 Admissions personnel from 127 medical schools reported the most common characteristics assessed during the interview were motivation and interest in medical school (68%), interpersonal skills and character (61%), maturity (58%), evidence of extracurricular activities (56%), communication skills (46%), and empathy and concern for others (38%). 5 Admissions personnel in medical schools thus appear to agree that the interview is most appropriately used to assess important non-cognitive characteristics, while cognitive abilities may be better evaluated through traditional predictors such as grade point average and scores on standardized, objective examinations of knowledge in the scientific areas relevant to medicine (i.e., Medical College Admissions Test [MCAT]). 5 It is unclear, however, whether interviews actually accomplish these desired goals.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…5 Admissions personnel in medical schools thus appear to agree that the interview is most appropriately used to assess important non-cognitive characteristics, while cognitive abilities may be better evaluated through traditional predictors such as grade point average and scores on standardized, objective examinations of knowledge in the scientific areas relevant to medicine (i.e., Medical College Admissions Test [MCAT]). 5 It is unclear, however, whether interviews actually accomplish these desired goals. What is known is that a personal interview typically fails to predict later performance.…”

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A Content Analysis of Interviewee Reports of Medical School Admissions Interviews

Rippentrop

Wong

Altmaier

2003

Medical Education Online

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Introduction. Prospective medical school applicants use Internet websites to gain information about medical school interviews as well as to offer their experience in such interviews. This study examined applicants' reported experiences of interviews and compared them to the purposes of the interview as purported by medical schools. Method. Content analysis of student feedback regarding medical school interviews at 161 medical schools was conducted for entries of over 4600 students applying to medical school who anonymously and voluntarily completed an online questionnaire. Results. Across all medical schools, nearly one half of all cited interview questions addressed noncognitive characteristics of the applicants. Top ranked medical schools were reported to ask significantly more interpersonal and illegal questions and fewer academic/general knowledge questions than other medical schools. Lower ranked schools did not differ significantly in the types of questions reportedly asked applicants compared to other medical schools. Discussion. Medical school interviews are generally gathering types of information about applicants that admissions personnel identify as important in the admission decision. In addition to measuring interpersonal characteristics, medical school admissions interviews are assessing cognitive abilities and ethical decision-making. Sources on the Internet provide actual medical school interview questions to prospective students. This practice can help them gain an undue advantage in interviewing. Admissions committees and faculty who interview students may want to consider how best to obtain accurate and valid responses from applicants.The medical school admissions interview has been retained as an essential feature of the admissions process in most medical schools.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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A Content Analysis of Interviewee Reports of Medical School Admissions Interviews

Rippentrop

Wong

Altmaier

2003

Medical Education Online

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“…The primary goal is to identify candidates with desirable characteristics appropriate for the practice of medicine as opposed to admitting students without these particular attributes and consequently left with the task of trying to instill them. Although an admission interview protocol is nearly a universal approach used at most medical schools to measure candidates' humanistic or noncognitive attributes, the interview process is criticized for being poorly structured, typically biased, and having low reliability and validity (Puryear & Lewis 1981;Johnson & Edwards 1991;Ferguson et al 2002;Goho & Blackman 2006).…”

Section: Practice Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A predictive validity study of medical judgment vignettes to assess students’ noncognitive attributes: A 3-year prospective longitudinal study

2009

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Background: The admissions interview still remains the most common approach used to describe candidates' noncognitive attributes for medical school. Aim: In this prospective study, we have investigated the predictive validity of a semi-structured interview for admissions to medical school based on medical judgment vignettes: (1) ethical decision-making (moral), (2) relationships with patients and their families (altruistic), and (3) roles and responsibilities in professional relationships (dutiful). Method: A group of 26 medical students from the Class of 2007 participated in the interview process and provided their subsequent performance results from clerkship 3 years later. Results: Inter-rater reliability of the scored interviews was high (k ¼ 0.96). Our results provided evidence for both convergent and divergent predictive validity. Medical judgment vignettes scores correlated significantly with seven mandatory clerkship rotation in-training evaluation reports (r ¼ 0.39, p < 0.05; to r ¼ 0.55, p < 0.01). Conclusion: This semi-structured interview based on clearly defined and scored medical judgment vignettes that focus on the assessment of medical students' noncognitive attributes is promising for student's selection into medical school. The high reliability and evidence of predictive validity of clinical performance over a 3-year period suggests a workable approach to the assessment of 'compelling personal characteristics' beyond merely cognitive variables.

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“…Some have argued that our national organization is responsible as their advocacy for subjective assessment is not supported with scientific validity evidence. This cannot be the sole reason however, as both the traditional interview and holistic committee review were in widespread use long before any organizational efforts to promote them [1,8,11,12]. Other likely explanations are that interviews and holistic committee review reflect our preference for tradition, unfamiliarity with validity concepts, the physician educator’s attachment to clinical/intuitive approaches, and more recently, attempts to avoid legally prohibited quota-based methods for attaining diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A meta-analytic perspective on the valid use of subjective human judgement to make medical school admission decisions

Kreiter

O’Shea

Bruen

et al. 2018

Medical Education Online

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While medical educators appear to believe that admission to the medical school should be governed, at least in part, by human judgement, there has been no systematic presentation of evidence suggesting it improves selection. From a fair testing perspective, legal, ethical, and psychometric considerations, all dictate that the scientific evidence regarding human judgement in selection should be given consideration. To investigate the validity of using human judgements in admissions, multi-disciplinary meta-analytic research evidence from the wider literature is combined with studies from within medical education to provide evidence regarding the fairness and validity of using interviews and holistic review in medical school admissions. Fourteen studies, 6 of which are meta-analytic studies that summarized 292 individual studies, were included in the final review. Within these studies, a total of 33 studies evaluated the reliability of the traditional interview. These studies reveal that the interview has low to moderate reliability (~.42) which significantly limits its validity. This is confirmed by over 100 studies examining interview validity which collectively show interview scores to be moderately correlated with important outcome variables (corrected value ~.29). Meta-analyses of over 150 studies demonstrate that mechanical/formula-based selection decisions produce better results than decisions made with holistic/clinical methods (human judgement). Three conclusions regarding the use of interviews and holistic review are provided by these meta-analyses. First, it is clear that the traditional interview has low reliability and that this significantly limits its validity. Second, the reliable variance from interview scores appears moderately predictive of outcomes that are relevant to consider in medical school admission. And third, the use of holistic review as a method of incorporating human judgement is not a valid alternative to mechanical/statistical approaches as the evidence clearly indicates that mechanistic methods are more predictive, reliable, cost efficient, and transparent.

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Current practices in admission interviews at U.S. medical schools

Cited by 46 publications

References 0 publications

A Content Analysis of Interviewee Reports of Medical School Admissions Interviews

A Content Analysis of Interviewee Reports of Medical School Admissions Interviews

A predictive validity study of medical judgment vignettes to assess students’ noncognitive attributes: A 3-year prospective longitudinal study

A meta-analytic perspective on the valid use of subjective human judgement to make medical school admission decisions

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