Extending the interview to all medical school candidates--Computer-Based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS).

Background: Most medical school candidates are excluded without benefit of noncognitive skills assessment. Is development of a noncognitive preinterview screening test that correlates with the well-validated Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI) possible?

Method: Study 1: 110 medical school candidates completed MMI and Computer-based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS)-eight 1-minute video-based scenarios and four self-descriptive questions, with short-answer-response format. Seventy-eight responses were audiotaped, 32 typewritten; all were scored by two independent raters. Study 2: 167 candidates completed CMSENS-eight videos, six self-descriptive questions, typewritten responses only, scored by two raters; 88 of 167 underwent the MMI.

Results: Results for overall test generalizability, interrater reliability, and correlation with MMI, respectively, were, for Study 1, audio-responders: 0.86, 0.82, 0.15; typewritten-responders: 0.72, 0.81, 0.51; and for Study 2, 0.83, 0.95, 0.46 (correlation with disattenuation was 0.60).

Conclusions: Strong psychometric properties, including MMI correlation, of CMSENS warrant investigation into future widespread implementation as a preinterview noncognitive screening test.