Abstract
BackgroundMedical student selection and assessment share an underlying high stakes context with the need for valid and reliable tools. This study examined the predictive validity of three tools commonly used in Australia: previous academic performance (Grade Point Average (GPA)), cognitive aptitude (a national admissions test), and non-academic qualities of prospective medical students (interview).MethodsA four year retrospective cohort study was conducted at Flinders University Australia involving 382 graduate entry medical students first enrolled between 2006 and 2009. The main outcomes were academic and clinical performance measures and an indicator of unimpeded progress across the four years of the course.ResultsA combination of the selection criteria explained between 7.1 and 29.1 % of variance in performance depending on the outcome measure. Weighted GPA consistently predicted performance across all years of the course. The national admissions test was associated with performance in Years 1 and 2 (pre-clinical) and the interview with performance in Years 3 and 4 (clinical). Those students with higher GPAs were more likely to have unimpeded progress across the entire course (OR = 2.29, 95 % CI 1.57, 3.33).ConclusionsThe continued use of multiple selection criteria to graduate entry medical courses is supported, with GPA remaining the single most consistent predictor of performance across all years of the course. The national admissions test is more valuable in the pre-clinical years, and the interview in the clinical years. Future selections research should develop the fledgling research base regarding the predictive validity of the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT), the algorithms for how individual tools are combined in selection, and further explore the usefulness of the unimpeded progress index.
Highlights
Medical student selection and assessment share an underlying high stakes context with the need for valid and reliable tools
By the time of a global Consensus Statement in 2010 [1], medical educationalists concluded that both Grade Point Average (GPA) as a measure of previous academic ability and the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT)
Flinders was the first university to offer a graduate entry medical course in Australia in 1996 and one of the three universities that commissioned the development of Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT)
Summary
Medical student selection and assessment share an underlying high stakes context with the need for valid and reliable tools. This study examined the predictive validity of three tools commonly used in Australia: previous academic performance (Grade Point Average (GPA)), cognitive aptitude (a national admissions test), and non-academic qualities of prospective medical students (interview). Given the relative dearth of research relating to student selection into graduate entry medicine in Australia, this study’s aim was to investigate the degree to which the three elements (GAMSAT, GPA and Interview score) of the Flinders selection model predict performance across all four years of its medical course. Unlike Puddey and Mercer [11], a number of disaggregated outcomes within each year were used rather than an aggregated annual outcome This decision was taken on the premise that the three selection tools may be differentially predictive of different course components. If this tool was to predict performance in any context, these associations would be expected in this cohort
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