Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Medicine, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Med Teach. 2020 Feb;42(2):164-171. doi: 10.1080/0142159X.2019.1670337. Epub 2019 Oct 8.
One popular procedure in the medical student selection process are multiple mini-interviews (MMIs), which are designed to assess social skills (e.g., empathy) by means of brief interview and role-play stations. However, it remains unclear whether MMIs reliably measure desired social skills or rather general performance differences that do not depend on specific social skills. Here, we provide a detailed investigation into the construct validity of MMIs, including the identification and quantification of performance facets (social skill-specific performance, station-specific performance, general performance) and their relations with other selection measures. We used data from three MMI samples ( = 376 applicants, 144 raters) that included six interview and role-play stations and multiple assessed social skills. Bayesian generalizability analyses show that, the largest amount of reliable MMI variance was accounted for by station-specific and general performance differences between applicants. Furthermore, there were low or no correlations with other selection measures. Our findings suggest that MMI ratings are less social skill-specific than originally conceptualized and are due more to general performance differences (across and within-stations). Future research should focus on the development of skill-specific MMI stations and on behavioral analyses on the extents to which performance differences are based on desirable skills versus undesired aspects.
在医学生选拔过程中，一种流行的程序是多次迷你面试（MMI），它旨在通过简短的面试和角色扮演站来评估社交技能（例如同理心）。然而，目前尚不清楚 MMIs 是否可靠地衡量所需的社交技能，还是只是一般的表现差异，而这些差异不依赖于特定的社交技能。在这里，我们对 MMIs 的构念效度进行了详细调查，包括确定和量化表现方面（特定于社交技能的表现、特定于站的表现、一般表现）及其与其他选拔措施的关系。我们使用了来自三个 MMI 样本的数据（= 376 名申请人，144 名评分者），其中包括六个面试和角色扮演站以及多个评估的社交技能。贝叶斯可概括性分析表明，申请人之间的站特定表现和一般表现差异解释了大部分可靠的 MMIs 方差。此外，与其他选拔措施几乎没有相关性。我们的研究结果表明，与最初的概念化相比，MMI 评分的社交技能特异性较低，更多地是由于一般表现差异（跨站和站内）。未来的研究应侧重于开发特定技能的 MMI 站，并进行行为分析，以确定表现差异是基于所需技能还是不想要的方面。
