Edwards J C, Johnson E K, Molidor J B
Department of Surgery, St. Louis University School of Medicine, Missouri 63104.
Acad Med. 1990 Mar;65(3):167-77. doi: 10.1097/00001888-199003000-00008.
Significant demographic, legal, and educational developments during the last ten years have led medical schools to review critically their selection procedures. A critical component of this review is the selection interview, since it is an integral part of most admission processes; however, some question its value. Interviews serve four purposes: information gathering, decision making, verification of application data, and recruitment. The first and last of these merit special attention. The interview enables an admission committee to gather information about a candidate that would be difficult or impossible to obtain by any other means yet is readily evaluated in an interview. Given the recent decline in numbers of applicants to and interest in medical school, many schools are paying closer attention to the interview as a powerful recruiting tool. Interviews can be unstructured, semistructured, or structured. Structuring involves analyzing what makes a medical student successful, standardizing the questions for all applicants, providing sample answers for evaluating responses, and using panel interviews (several interviewers simultaneously with one applicant). Reliability and validity of results increase with the degree of structuring. Studies of interviewers show that they are often biased in terms of the rating tendencies (for instance, leniency or severity) and in terms of an applicant's sex, race, appearance, similarity to the interviewer, and contrast to other applicants). Training interviewers may reduce such bias. Admission committees should weigh the purposes of interviewing differently for various types of candidates, develop structured or semistructured interviews focusing on nonacademic criteria, and train the interviewers.
过去十年间显著的人口结构、法律和教育方面的发展促使医学院校认真审视其选拔程序。此次审查的一个关键组成部分是选拔面试，因为它是大多数录取过程中不可或缺的一部分；然而，有些人质疑其价值。面试有四个目的：收集信息、做出决策、核实申请数据以及招生。其中第一个和最后一个目的值得特别关注。面试使招生委员会能够收集关于候选人的信息，这些信息通过其他任何方式都难以或无法获得，但在面试中却易于评估。鉴于最近申请医学院校的人数和对医学院校兴趣的下降，许多学校越来越重视将面试作为一种强大的招生工具。面试可以是非结构化、半结构化或结构化的。结构化包括分析成为一名成功医学生的因素、为所有申请人标准化问题、提供用于评估回答的示例答案以及采用小组面试（几位面试官同时面试一名申请人）。结果的可靠性和有效性会随着结构化程度的提高而增加。对面试官的研究表明，他们在评分倾向（例如宽松或严格）以及申请人的性别、种族、外貌、与面试官的相似性以及与其他申请人的差异方面往往存在偏见。培训面试官可能会减少此类偏见。招生委员会应该针对不同类型的候选人对面试目的进行不同的权衡，制定侧重于非学术标准的结构化或半结构化面试，并对面试官进行培训。
