PREDICTION OF MEDICAL-SCHOOL PERFORMANCE - USE OF ADMISSION INTERVIEWREPORT NARRATIVES

Background: Most American medical schools interview candidates as part of the selection process for admission and require interviewers to re cord written comments regarding their impressions of candidates they m eet. Admission committees use this interview data to select their cand idates for admission assuming that interviewers' written assertions wi ll forecast future achievement of matriculants in medical school. Purp ose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether particular att ributes of applicants elicited by probe statements on the admission in terview report form were associated with performance indices in medica l school. Methods: In this study, 930 interview reports were coded for matriculants at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine from 1 984 to 1988. Data from the content analysis of the interview reports w ere correlated with medical school grade point averages and performanc e on the National Board of Medical Examiners Part I and Part II examin ations. Results: Comments from the interview report responding to prob es regarding experience and knowledge of the profession, source of mot ivation, degree of educational, economic, and social advantagedness, a nd the overall summary were associated with student performance in med ical school. Conclusion: Studies such as these give admission committe e members insight into applicant attributes that may be positively ass ociated with medical school performance.