Predicting Medical Student Performance With a Situational Judgment Test in Admissions.

Purpose: To explore correlations between AAMC situational judgment test (SJT) scores, other admissions data, and learners' medical school performance.

Method: First- and second-year medical students from 8 U.S.

Designing a Situational Judgment Test for Use in Medical School Admissions.

It has long been acknowledged that professional competencies are required for success in medical school, residency training, and medical practice. Over the last decade, medical schools have begun to introduce standardized assessments of professional competencies, but many still rely on interviews to assess these competencies, which occur after about half of the applicant pool has already been screened out. In this article, the authors discuss the development, evaluation, and launch of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) situational judgment test (SJT) for use in medical school admissions.

Core personal competencies important to entering students' success in medical school: what are they and how could they be assessed early in the admission process?

Assessing applicants' personal competencies in the admission process has proven difficult because there is not an agreed-on set of personal competencies for entering medical students. In addition, there are questions about the measurement properties and costs of currently available assessment tools. The Association of American Medical College's Innovation Lab Working Group (ILWG) and Admissions Initiative therefore engaged in a multistep, multiyear process to identify personal competencies important to entering students' success in medical school as well as ways to measure them early in the admission process.

An overview of the medical school admission process and use of applicant data in decision making: what has changed since the 1980s?

Purpose: To investigate current medical school admission processes and whether they differ from those in 1986 when they were last reviewed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

Method: In spring 2008, admission deans from all MD-granting U.S.

The predictive validity of the MCAT exam in relation to academic performance through medical school: a national cohort study of 2001-2004 matriculants.

Purpose: Most research examining the predictive validity of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) has focused on the relationship between MCAT scores and scores on the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step exams. This study examined whether MCAT scores predict students' unimpeded progress toward graduation (UP), which the authors defined as not withdrawing or being dismissed for academic reasons, graduating within five years of matriculation, and passing the Step 1, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge, and Step 2 Clinical Skills exams on the first attempt.

Method: Students who matriculated during 2001-2004 at 119 U.