Reliability and validity of an attribute-based autobiographical sketch medical school admission tool, the mini-curriculum vitae: Implications for admission decision making

A curriculum vitae (CV) is probably the most important first piece of information for an employer to evaluate for job applications (Cole et al. 2007). The CV may lead to an interview for the position advertised. Therefore, writing a good CV is extremely essential and it is a valuable life skill to have. However, there have been debates as to the reliability and validity of a CV.;The purpose of this study was to identify other non-cognitive assessments of medical school applicants. The focus of this study was to analyze the data from a Mini-CV to determine its reliability and predictive validity to admissions measures and the Big Five Personality Inventory Scores. Moreover, the reliability of the new Mini-CV was compared to the existing Ontario Medical School Application Services Auto-Biographical Sketch (OMSAS ABS). In order to achieve this, the researcher used Generalizability (G-) Theory as a statistical framework to determine the reliability of the Mini-CV. Pearson's correlations were used to determine the predictive validity of the Mini-CV to admissions measures and the scores on the Big Five Personality Inventory. This study was divided into an Initial Study and a Final Study. The Initial Study concerned with a partial Mini-CV tool with nine items while the Final Study concerned the entire version of the Mini-CV.;For the 2013/2014 application cycle, there were 4560 applicants to the School of Medicine in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada for the 203 seats. Of these applicants, 552 applicants attempted the Mini-CV. Fifty applicants from these 552 applicants were randomly selected for the generalizability (G-) coefficient analysis.;Results showed that the G-coefficient of the Mini-CV was 0.812, which is acceptable in Medical School Admissions contrasting with the G-coefficient of 0.598 of the OMSAS ABS. The Mini-CV correlated with the Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) scores and not with other admissions measures. For the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Mini-CV did not correlate with the Conscientiousness Scores. However, the Mini-CV correlated with the Openness and the Extraversion scores on the Big Five Personality Inventory.;Lastly, this study has implications for medical educational policy makers. A tool for admissions may only be measuring one aspect of the applicant for his or her suitability to medical school. Therefore, it is important to use as many reliable and valid tools as possible. In this way, if an applicant did not do well on one tool, he or she may still be admitted based on the performance on other tools. More tools would also increase the diversity of the medical student body; unless all the tools are measuring the same thing; which is unlikely as the correlations of admissions tools are usually not high. For some of the schools, the Grade Point Averages, Medical College Admissions Test, and the MMI are used. The Mini-CV will make an excellent screening tool to decrease the number of applicants to the MMI, as the MMI is quite costly to operate.