University of Dundee, Scotland.
Med Teach. 2011;33(9):e485-8. doi: 10.3109/0142159X.2011.599448.
The Personal Qualities Assessment (PQA) was developed to enhance medical student selection by measuring a range of non-cognitive attributes in the applicants to medical school. Applicants to the five Scottish medical schools were invited to pilot the test in 2001 and 2002.
To evaluate the predictive validity of PQA for selecting medical students.
A longitudinal cohort study was conducted in which PQA scores were compared with senior year medical school performance.
Consent to access performance markers was obtained from 626 students (61.6% of 1017 entrants in 2002-2003). Linkable Foundation Year (4th) rankings were available for 411 (66%) students and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) rankings for 335 (54%) of those consenting. Both samples were representative of the original cohort. No significant correlations were detected between separate elements of the PQA assessment and student performance. However, using the algorithm advocated by Powis et al. those defined as 'non-extreme' (<±1.5 SD from the cohort mean scores; SD, standard deviation) character types on the involved-detached and on the libertarian-communitarian moral orientation scales were ranked higher in OSCEs (average of 7.5% or 25 out of 335, p = 0.049).
This study was limited by high attrition and basic outcome markers which are insensitive to relevant non-cognitive characteristics. However, it is the largest currently available study of predictive validity for the PQA assessment. There was one finding of significance: that those students who were identified by PQA as 'not extreme' on the two personal characteristics scales performed better in an OSCE measure of professionalism. Futures studies are required since psychometric testing for both cognitive and non-cognitive attributes are increasingly used in admission process and these should include more and better measures of professionalism against which to correlate non-cognitive traits.
个人素质评估（PQA）旨在通过测量医学院申请者的一系列非认知属性来提高医学生的选拔水平。2001 年和 2002 年，邀请了五所苏格兰医学院的申请者试用该测试。
评估 PQA 预测医学生选择的有效性。
进行了一项纵向队列研究，比较了 PQA 分数与医学生高年级的学业表现。
从 2002-2003 年的 1017 名入学学生中获得了 626 名（61.6%）同意获取表现标记的同意书。411 名（66%）学生的基础年（第 4 年）排名可链接，335 名（54%）同意的学生有客观结构化临床考试（OSCE）排名。这两个样本都代表了原始队列。在 PQA 评估的各个要素与学生表现之间未检测到显著相关性。然而，使用 Powis 等人提倡的算法，在卷入-超脱和自由-集体主义道德取向量表上被定义为“非极端”（与队列平均分数的±1.5 标准差；标准差）性格类型的人在 OSCE 中的排名更高（平均 7.5%或 335 人中的 25 人，p=0.049）。
本研究受到高流失率和基本结果指标的限制，这些指标对相关非认知特征不敏感。然而，这是目前关于 PQA 评估预测有效性的最大研究。有一个发现具有重要意义：那些在两个个人特征量表上被 PQA 确定为“非极端”的学生在 OSCE 专业能力测量中表现更好。需要进一步研究，因为认知和非认知属性的心理测试在录取过程中越来越多地被使用，这些研究应该包括更多和更好的专业主义衡量标准，以便与非认知特征相关联。
