Accuracy of self-assessed Spanish fluency in medical students.
BACKGROUND
Non-English language fluency is increasingly important in patient care. Fluency self-assessment is easily obtained, but its accuracy is unknown.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose is to determine accuracy of medical students' self-assessed Spanish fluency.


METHODS
Four matriculating classes assessed their own oral fluency as ("none":"novice";"intermediate";"advanced";"native-speaker"). Participants who rated themselves greater than "novice" and who expressed interest in medical Spanish coursework took a standardized fluency test (Spoken Language Evaluation, scaled 1-12). Using predetermined test categories (1-5 = novice, 6-8 = intermediate, 9-12 = advanced/native), we determined the predictive value of self-assessment for predicting the same or greater fluency on the test.


RESULTS
Of 102 participants, 12 (12%) tested below their self-assessed level, 77 (75%) tested at their self-assessed level, and 13 (13%) tested above. The predictive value of self-assessment for having at least that fluency level was 88% (95% CI = 80, 94).


CONCLUSIONS
In medical students reporting greater than "novice" capability and interest in medical Spanish coursework, fluency self-assessment was a good indicator of scores on a standardized fluency test.
Reuland
Daniel S
DS
Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and the Center for Latino Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7110, USA. dreuland@med.unc.edu
Frasier
Pamela Y
PY
Olson
Matthew D
MD
Slatt
Lisa M
LM
Aleman
Marco A
MA
Fernandez
Alicia
A
D003142:Communication; D003144:Communication Barriers; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012655:Self-Evaluation Programs; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013337:Students, Medical; D014481:United States