Jones P Eugene, Forister J Glenn
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Physician Assistant Studies, Dallas, USA.
J Physician Assist Educ. 2011;22(1):36-40. doi: 10.1097/01367895-201122010-00006.
The interview remains a widely used tool in health professions program admissions. The purpose of this study was to compare the use of a behavioral interview format with the multiple mini-interview format in measuring desired noncognitive behaviors.
This dual cohort, observational, comparative study used a polytomous rating-scale model to analyze the results from two homogeneous groups of physician assistant (PA) program applicants (total N = 176). One group (n = 93) participated in two 20-minute behavioral interviews conducted by two raters per interviewee. The behavioral format included questions related to past behaviors and performance as a way to identify latent professionalism characteristics. The second group (n = 83) completed ten separate 7-minute stations with one rater per station. Each of the mini-stations assigned a specific topic and/or task to be completed. The score distributions related to applicant performance and station difficulty were plotted using Rasch analysis software.
The behavioral interview format and multiple mini-interview had similar model fit. The behavioral interview did not adequately measure differences in applicant characteristics. In contrast, the multiple mini-interview measured more variation in noncognitive traits and identified better matching of station difficulty and person ability.
In this study the multiple mini-interview format was a more reliable admissions tool in detecting latent professionalism attributes among PA program applicants. The multiple mini-interview format appeared to measure professional potential and organizational fit better than the behavioral interview format. A larger study across several programs may provide additional support for these findings.
面试仍是健康职业项目招生中广泛使用的工具。本研究的目的是比较行为面试形式与多重迷你面试形式在衡量所需非认知行为方面的应用。
这项双队列、观察性、比较研究使用多分类评分量表模型来分析两组同质的医师助理（PA）项目申请者（总N = 176）的结果。一组（n = 93）参加了由两名评估者对每位面试者进行的两场20分钟的行为面试。行为面试形式包括与过去行为和表现相关的问题，以此来识别潜在的职业素养特征。第二组（n = 83）完成了十个单独的7分钟站点测试，每个站点有一名评估者。每个迷你站点都分配了一个特定的主题和/或任务来完成。使用Rasch分析软件绘制与申请者表现和站点难度相关的分数分布。
行为面试形式和多重迷你面试具有相似的模型拟合度。行为面试未能充分衡量申请者特征的差异。相比之下，多重迷你面试在非认知特质方面测量到了更多的差异，并更好地识别了站点难度与个人能力的匹配情况。
在本研究中，多重迷你面试形式是检测PA项目申请者潜在职业素养属性的更可靠招生工具。多重迷你面试形式似乎比行为面试形式更能衡量职业潜力和组织适应性。跨多个项目的更大规模研究可能会为这些发现提供更多支持。
