USN&WR ( ) surveyed 130 medical schools fully accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. Only publicly available data was utilized in our analysis. Permission to utilize data from USN&WR in a non-commercial manner was attained from the Permissions Office and the Director of Specialty Marketing at USN&WR. Institutional review board exemption for waivers of informed consent was attained from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Office of Research Compliance. News and World Report’s (USN&WR), and does not contain specific student identifiers. This study examines multiple variables to determine which factors play a greater role in determining medical student success, as well as identifies institutions that significantly deviate from expected trend lines, and thus identify those curricula that may potentially excel in efficiently educating students.ĭata was collected from a publicly accessible database, U.S. standardized exam scores), and thus, their reliability is unknown. peer assessment score), have not been compared against objective predictors (i.e. However, numerous predictors of USMLE performance, including subjective predictors (i.e. Performance on Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) exam has also been associated with performance on USMLE Step 1 and the MCAT. Moderate correlations have been identified between USMLE Step 1, MCAT, and undergraduate GPA. Many studies have examined predictors of standardized exam performance however, data sets do not distinguish by institution or curriculum (i.e., problem based learning, lectures, team based learning, etc.). These exams are the primary academic criteria for residency selection, for to an extent they provide a gauge of student learning. Step 1 assesses basic science knowledge, whereas Step 2 focuses on clinical understanding. Meanwhile, two forms of student evaluation that occur during the time of medical studies include assessments in clinical clerkships and United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) exams due to variability in scoring systems for clinical clerkships, the most consistent measurement of school product is the USMLE Step exams. Despite such challenges, prior medical school assessments have emphasized school admissions rate, entering class Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and grade point averages (GPA), full-time faculty-to-student ratio, and National Institute of Health (NIH) funding. Gauging medical education quality has always remained challenging due to the myriad of factors that can be assessed, including those which are difficulty to quantify-such as adherence to the medical school’s mission statement. Having identified these institutions, their curriculums can be further studied to determine what factors enhance student learning. Their performance might be explainable by differences in curriculum. Outlier institutions produce USMLE scores that do not follow expected trend lines. Although MCAT scores and National Institute of Health funds are significantly associated with USMLE performance, six outlier institutions were identified, producing higher USMLE scores than trend line predictions. Multivariable analysis also supports a significant association between MCAT scores and Step scores, meanwhile National Institute of Health funding size demonstrates a negative correlation with USMLE Step 2 scores. Of these nine variables, MCAT scores and Step 1 scores display the strongest correlation (corr = 0.72, P < .0001). public), full-time faculty-to-student ratio, National Institute of Health funds, residency director assessment score, peer assessment score, and class size. Univariate analysis reveals a significant association between USMLE Step 1 and 2 scores with medical college admissions test scores, grade point averages, school type (private vs. All statistical analyses were two-sided and performed using SAS software version 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). A multivariable linear regression model was developed to identify the factors contributing to USMLE scores. A univariate analysis was performed first for each variable using two sample t-test or Wilcoxon rank sum test for categorical variables, and Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficients for continuous variables. News and World Report’s 2014 evaluation of allopathic U.S. Our objective is to present a summary of variables associated with the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) scores, and thus identify institutions (and therefore curriculums) which deviate from trend lines by producing higher USMLE scores despite having lower entrance grade point averages and medical college admissions test (MCAT) scores. Many studies have examined predictors of standardized exam performance however, data sets do not distinguish by institution or curriculum. Gauging medical education quality has always remained challenging.
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