Medical Specialty Preference Inventory--Revised

Predictive Validity of Person Matching at the Scale and Discriminant Analysis Levels

“…The MSPI‐R (Richard, ) measures interest in 18 areas of medical practice and predicts entrance into 16 major medical specialties. There are 150 items included in the MSPI‐R; however, only 102 items are used to score the instrument (Glavin et al, Of those, 88 items are used to score the 18 Medical Interest Scales, and 30 items (identified by discriminant analysis) are used to score the 16 Specialty Choice Probabilities (Richard, ). Sixteen of the items are scored in both the Medical Interest Scales and the Specialty Choice Probabilities (Richard, ).…”

“…There are 150 items included in the MSPI‐R; however, only 102 items are used to score the instrument (Glavin et al, Of those, 88 items are used to score the 18 Medical Interest Scales, and 30 items (identified by discriminant analysis) are used to score the 16 Specialty Choice Probabilities (Richard, ). Sixteen of the items are scored in both the Medical Interest Scales and the Specialty Choice Probabilities (Richard, ). The remaining 48 items are not scored, and they may be used in the future for possible replacement of items as needed to improve the predictive ability of the instrument and to support the development of new specialties (Richard, ).…”

“…Sixteen of the items are scored in both the Medical Interest Scales and the Specialty Choice Probabilities (Richard, ). The remaining 48 items are not scored, and they may be used in the future for possible replacement of items as needed to improve the predictive ability of the instrument and to support the development of new specialties (Richard, ).…”

Validity of Person Matching in Vocational Interest Inventories

“…General vocational interest inventories (e.g., the Strong Interest Inventory [SII; Donnay, Morris, Schaubhut, & Thompson, ] or Self‐Directed Search [SDS; Holland, ]) demonstrate very limited success in helping medical students to select their medical specialty, because the generic interests measured in these types of inventories share similarities across all medical specialties (Glavin, Richard, & Porfeli, ; Sodano & Richard, ). Therefore, to compare the two scoring methodologies, I selected the Medical Specialty Preference Inventory–Revised (MSPI‐R; Richard, ) because a data set existed that included a large sample with item scores, longitudinal data, and demographic data. In addition, medicine has the most complex and diverse array of specialties that require decidedly different abilities, skills, and talents (Rogers, Creed, & Searle, ; Sodano & Richard, ; Stratton, Witzke, Elam, & Cheever, ).…”

“…The Cronbach's alpha, a measure of internal consistency, indicated reliabilities ranging from .77 for History Taking and Diagnostic Precision to .94 for Psychological Care (Richard, ). Comparisons between the second edition MSPI factors and the MSPI‐R medical interest scales suggested high positive correlations and indicated sufficient validity of the new MSPI‐R medical interest scales (Richard, ). A study by Porfeli, Richard, and Savickas () suggested a hit rate of 56% with the MSPI‐R.…”