Research like this should be replicated across medical schools heavy on the UKCAT

[Medicine Woman:)]

Here's wishing you a very Happy New Year 2010. Fingers crossed your son is successful with his application to study medicine. I can imagine how gutted you will feel for him if he is not.

[Sanjetti]

Actually no, I dont agree that international students recogonise the UK standards of education my view is that international countries should raise the standards in their own country. I dont think the NHS is a world beater. In terms of the NHS a few doctors are inspirational the vast majority are competent and a small minority well are ...
Pay my tax bill on the 31 January and you will have a different attitude to the current state of the UK public sector. My view is a generation of young people is being wasted in the UK and the two sections of community a civilised society should look after are the very old and the young leaving school and in the UK we have failed both these communities. I attended a conference in Abu Dhabi last year where Gordon Brown the PM was speaking- I bearly recognised my own country in his speech. The NHS and the UK universities have been largely untouched by this recession but wait until after the election and see the difference-we are skint (Scottish word)- and drastic changes are coming. My interests are that my son wants to do medicine he is the best candidate we have put up for 100 years if he doesnt get in there will be repercussions of a political nature or we will die trying. Personally I think their is a better lifestyle outwith medicine but hey ho it is his life. International students are often judged on their ability to pay not their talent so excuse me for being cynical. By the way I hope your Queens interview went well. I am not against International entrants just fed up with all the PC that is medical admissions process. Have a nice Christmas!!

I understand how difficult it must be going through the whole admissions process as a father, just from seeing what my dad has had to go through from my last 2 UCAS cycles. But I'm sure your son will get what he deserves, has he heard from anywhere yet?

Just to address your point about international students, I do understand your cynicism, but the selection of international students, in my opinion, is as fair and merit-based as the selection of home students. If a medical school has 300 places, a certain number, say 30, will be allocated to international students. These students will have to go through exactly the same process as the rest of us, and there is a limited number of places for them. They aren't allowed to take any extra, just because they "pay more". I think it's unfair to say that international students only got in because they bought their way in, as that is not true at all.

I do sincerely wish your son the best of luck, let us know if he hears any good news!

[Singh.Simran]

I've never met an international student who isn't more diligent and attains consistently higher marks in exams than the average home/eu.

Only anecdotal, and I'm ignoring the fact that time after time said people have little to no social abilities and rarely contribute to the life of the instituation over and above work, but it does seem to ring true..

With 20k a year, you and your parents aspirations riding on you, and a long(er) way to wall, in many people's eyes, if it doesn't work out.. there is a strong pressure to succeed.

In terms of "exam merit", med schools should be pikcing 40% of their applicants from india and china!

[The Fantastic Dr. Fox]

Like so many people have said before, I can see why it exists. So many very good, very able applicants and there does need to be something else to differentiate. I also think it is good to try and test some ''innate'' abilities because if it just becomes a another hoop to jump through then pretty much everyone will jump through it and the differentiating ability of the test will be lost. It does need to to at least attempt to be something you cant really prepare for. However, as many people have said, it is questionable whether it tests the right abilities and whether it really cant be prepared for. It is also completely true that it needs to be evidence based. I don't think that one study really disproves much but the author was right to call for more research in that area. Bringing in cut-offs before long term observations can be made is very premature.

I would suggest that there were more interviews, perhaps done in rounds so that the universites could really see what their applicants are about but I doubt that is going to happen. Therefore I would be happy to keep an entrance test, but it needs to be the right test. The idea concerning giving realistic amounts of time is good, and the move generally has to be towards testing what makes a good clinical decision maker (how to do this I am not ina position to comment on but I believe that's what needs to be done). And before any test is inroduced there has to bee proof of long term reliability.

That said, I would love to see how a-levels, interviews etc correlate (I would wager A-levels are pretty poor indicators)

[Masuda]

Interviews have been widely recognised as being lacking for predicting success in both education and in job performance.

I have worked with similar testing for recruitment which in the business world has been shown to be very good indicators for actual job performance - the key question is do we need people to have great marks at med school or to perform as great doctors in real life.

The UKCAT does at least attempt to test abilities that will be used in everyday life as a doctor - Verbal Reasoning - you do need the ability to correctly and logically infer from a patients history and to know what you cannot assume - the ability to distinguish truth does have a bearing on diagnostic abilities.
Quantitative Reasoning - the need for these abilities should be obvious for everyday prescribing activities and again for correctly understanding a patients history.
Abstract Reasoning is about pattern recognition again a key ability for establishing diagnoses.
Decision Analysis - the key innate ability being tested here is the ability to work with incomplete and imperfect information - again something that will be needed for establishing a diagnosis based on a patient's quite often incomplete and imperfect information about symptoms and their duration or causes.

The tests should not be taken too literally - it is not the ability to do these particular questions that is being tested but the transferable skills needed.

Even the very constrained time element can be defended as the ability to perform under pressure is key to success as a doctor and in diagnostic terms the time taken to reach the correct conclusion can be very important for a patients prognosis.

[Rippy]

Like so many people have said before, I can see why it exists. So many very good, very able applicants and there does need to be something else to differentiate. I also think it is good to try and test some ''innate'' abilities because if it just becomes a another hoop to jump through then pretty much everyone will jump through it and the differentiating ability of the test will be lost. It does need to to at least attempt to be something you cant really prepare for. However, as many people have said, it is questionable whether it tests the right abilities and whether it really cant be prepared for. It is also completely true that it needs to be evidence based. I don't think that one study really disproves much but the author was right to call for more research in that area. Bringing in cut-offs before long term observations can be made is very premature.

I would suggest that there were more interviews, perhaps done in rounds so that the universites could really see what their applicants are about but I doubt that is going to happen. Therefore I would be happy to keep an entrance test, but it needs to be the right test. The idea concerning giving realistic amounts of time is good, and the move generally has to be towards testing what makes a good clinical decision maker (how to do this I am not ina position to comment on but I believe that's what needs to be done). And before any test is inroduced there has to bee proof of long term reliability.

That said, I would love to see how a-levels, interviews etc correlate (I would wager A-levels are pretty poor indicators)

Indicators of what? How well you do at medschool? If so, I'd imagine doing well in A Levels would correlate with doing well at uni, but just because so many people get AAA they become useless at differentiating people. To be honest, I can't imagine interviews correlate with anything, since there's nothing to stop people lying the whole time. But then interviews aren't meant to show who'll do well at medschool, they're to assess personal qualities I suppose.

As for the post above, I agree in principle, but if the UKCAT isn't shown to correlate... that sort of defeats the purpose of it I guess.

[Masuda]

Does the UKCAT predict Year 1 performance in medical school?
Bonnie Lynch, Rhoda MacKenzie, Jon Dowell, Jennifer Cleland, Gordon Prescott
Medical Education, Vol. 43, No. 12. (December 2009), pp. 1203-1209


Data were available for 341 students. Examination scores did not correlate with UKCAT total or subtest scores. Neither UCAS form score nor admission interview score predicted outcomes. None of the UKCAT scores were reliably associated with withdrawals (P-values for all comparisons > 0.05). Only the decision analysis subtest was associated with re-sits of examinations, but the difference in means was contrary to the direction anticipated (P = 0.025, 95% confidence interval = 6.1201389.7).

UKCAT scores did not predict Year 1 performance at the two medical schools. Although early prediction is arguably not the primary aim of the UKCAT, there is some cause for concern that the test failed to show even the small-to-moderate predictive power demonstrated by similar admissions tools.


Thoughts anyone?

Umm the study suggests that there was no correlation between UKCAT scores and Year 1 outcomes at one med school in one year (a sample size of 341)...... it also says "Neither UCAS form score nor admission interview score predicted outcomes. "

As far as I can see this study suggests that they looked at an insignificant outcome, for an insignificant number of candidates and found that nothing was able to predict anything.

This study seems like a major breakthrough to me - I cant understand why on earth the UCAS form, interviews and the UKCAT haven't all been scrapped in the face of such towering evidence.

It does look as if the UKCAT is here to stay - thinking how to ace it may be wiser than trying to discredit it with bits of fluff.

[krazyfish]

Umm the study suggests that there was no correlation between UKCAT scores and Year 1 outcomes at one med school in one year (a sample size of 341)...... it also says "Neither UCAS form score nor admission interview score predicted outcomes. "

As far as I can see this study suggests that they looked at an insignificant outcome, for an insignificant number of candidates and found that nothing was able to predict anything.

This study seems like a major breakthrough to me - I cant understand why on earth the UCAS form, interviews and the UKCAT haven't all been scrapped in the face of such towering evidence.

It does look as if the UKCAT is here to stay - thinking how to ace it may be wiser than trying to discredit it with bits of fluff.

The point here is that more information is needed to predict pure success of the UKCAT. Don't misunderstand me; it is a test with potential, but it is not there yet. The structure of the test encourages guessing and by research methodology, it lacks serious construct validity. Sure, the purpose of the Abstract Reasoning is to test whether or not one can identify patterns (while ignoring irrelevant data). But that is the point. It is assuming that the general population filters and engages in similar processes to identify irrelevant data, which is an overstatement. It does not mean that if someone cannot recognize patterns in the circles, rectangles and triangles on this section, they cannot recognize patterns on a bacterial sample. 65 figures in 16 minutes, thats roughly 0.2 seconds per figure IF you want to attempt every single one and not guess. This is why the test has potential but is not there yet. Why not cut the figures so it does not encourage guessing?

Quantitative Reasoning - 36 items. I scored the highest on this section, but time only allowed calculation for 18 problems. The last minute was pure blind guessing, but ended up with the highest score. What is your explanation on the predictive value of this, UKCATprep.com? How would this translate into an applicant's potential ability to succeed as a physician? While the article did mention that interviews did not predict much success either, it is reasonable to prioritize the interview over the UCKAT because at the very least, the interview assess one's ability to be articulate and deliver formed opinions on the spot.

I did not need to ace it to get accepted fortunately. I had a sub-600 score. Thanks to the interview.

[khaa9666]

[QUOTE=krazyfish;735301]The point here is that more information is needed to predict pure success of the UKCAT. Don't misunderstand me; it is a test with potential, but it is not there yet. The structure of the test encourages guessing and by research methodology, it lacks serious construct validity. Sure, the purpose of the Abstract Reasoning is to test whether or not one can identify patterns (while ignoring irrelevant data). But that is the point. It is assuming that the general population filters and engages in similar processes to identify irrelevant data, which is an overstatement. It does not mean that if someone cannot recognize patterns in the circles, rectangles and triangles on this section, they cannot recognize patterns on a bacterial sample. 65 figures in 16 minutes, thats roughly 0.2 seconds per figure IF you want to attempt every single one and not guess. This is why the test has potential but is not there yet. Why not cut the figures so it does not encourage guessing?

Quantitative Reasoning - 36 items. I scored the highest on this section, but time only allowed calculation for 18 problems. The last minute was pure blind guessing, but ended up with the highest score. What is your explanation on the predictive value of this, UKCATprep.com? How would this translate into an applicant's potential ability to succeed as a physician? While the article did mention that interviews did not predict much success either, it is reasonable to prioritize the interview over the UCKAT because at the very least, the interview assess one's ability to be articulate and deliver formed opinions on the spot.

I did not need to ace it to get accepted fortunately. I had a sub-600 score. Thanks to the interview.[/QUOTE

Sorry chief i'm a buit lost as to why you are even attempting to debate/argue with a guy who works for a UKCAT prepareation company pushing a UKCAT course, you're fighting a losing battle there pal, vested interests i'm afraid, just leave the guy to it.

[Rippy]

[QUOTE=khaa9666;735364]

The point here is that more information is needed to predict pure success of the UKCAT. Don't misunderstand me; it is a test with potential, but it is not there yet. The structure of the test encourages guessing and by research methodology, it lacks serious construct validity. Sure, the purpose of the Abstract Reasoning is to test whether or not one can identify patterns (while ignoring irrelevant data). But that is the point. It is assuming that the general population filters and engages in similar processes to identify irrelevant data, which is an overstatement. It does not mean that if someone cannot recognize patterns in the circles, rectangles and triangles on this section, they cannot recognize patterns on a bacterial sample. 65 figures in 16 minutes, thats roughly 0.2 seconds per figure IF you want to attempt every single one and not guess. This is why the test has potential but is not there yet. Why not cut the figures so it does not encourage guessing?

Quantitative Reasoning - 36 items. I scored the highest on this section, but time only allowed calculation for 18 problems. The last minute was pure blind guessing, but ended up with the highest score. What is your explanation on the predictive value of this, UKCATprep.com? How would this translate into an applicant's potential ability to succeed as a physician? While the article did mention that interviews did not predict much success either, it is reasonable to prioritize the interview over the UCKAT because at the very least, the interview assess one's ability to be articulate and deliver formed opinions on the spot.

I did not need to ace it to get accepted fortunately. I had a sub-600 score. Thanks to the interview.[/QUOTE

Sorry chief i'm a buit lost as to why you are even attempting to debate/argue with a guy who works for a UKCAT prepareation company pushing a UKCAT course, you're fighting a losing battle there pal, vested interests i'm afraid, just leave the guy to it.

Not much of a vested interest.......... Whether or not the UKCAT is "useful", course organisers will still want money. And in actual fact, if you view that person's UKCAT website, you will see the UKCAT prep material they have is free. So really... I don't see the vested interest in this case.

Also, the person you quoted said they got under 600. You don't think they're biased aswell?