title: Past-behavioural versus situational questions in a postgraduate admissions multiple mini-interview: a reliability and acceptability comparison.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI) mostly uses 'Situational' Questions (SQs) as an interview format within a station, rather than 'Past-Behavioural' Questions (PBQs), which are most frequently adopted in traditional single-station personal interviews (SSPIs) for non-medical and medical selection. This study investigated reliability and acceptability of the postgraduate admissions MMI with PBQ and SQ interview formats within MMI stations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-six Japanese medical graduates, first completed the two-year national obligatory initial postgraduate clinical training programme and then applied to three specialty training programmes - internal medicine, general surgery, and emergency medicine - in a Japanese teaching hospital, where they underwent the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-competency-based MMI. This MMI contained five stations, with two examiners per station. In each station, a PBQ, and then an SQ were asked consecutively. PBQ and SQ interview formats were not separated into two different stations, or the order of questioning of PBQs and SQs in individual stations was not changed due to lack of space and experienced examiners. Reliability was analysed for the scores of these two MMI question types. Candidates and examiners were surveyed on this experience.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The PBQ and SQ formats had generalisability coefficients of 0.822 and 0.821, respectively. With one examiner per station, seven stations could produce a reliability of more than 0.80 in both PBQ and SQ formats. More than 60% of both candidates and examiners felt positive about the overall candidates' ability. All participants liked the fairness of this MMI when compared with the previously experienced SSPI. SQs were perceived more favourable by candidates; in contrast, PBQs were perceived more relevant by examiners.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both PBQs and SQs are equally reliable and acceptable as station interview formats in the postgraduate admissions MMI. However, the use of the two formats within the same station, and with a fixed order, is not the best to maximise its utility as an admission test. Future studies are required to evaluate how best the SQs and PBQs should be combined as station interview formats to enhance reliability, feasibility, acceptability and predictive validity of the MMI.
authors.affiliation: Educational Committee, Prefectural Okinawa Nanbu and Children's Medical Centre, Haebaru Town, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. yoshimura.hiroshi@gmail.com.|Educational Committee, Tokyo Bay Urayasu-Ichikawa Medical Centre, Urayasu City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. yoshimura.hiroshi@gmail.com.|Department of Surgery, University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, State of Hawaii, USA. yoshimura.hiroshi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.affiliation: Educational Committee, Tokyo Bay Urayasu-Ichikawa Medical Centre, Urayasu City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. hkitazono@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Hidetaka
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kitazono
authors.affiliation: Educational Committee, Tokyo Bay Urayasu-Ichikawa Medical Centre, Urayasu City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. shigekifujitani@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Shigeki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fujitani
authors.affiliation: Educational Committee, Tokyo Bay Urayasu-Ichikawa Medical Centre, Urayasu City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. junji@hawaii.edu.|Department of Surgery, University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, State of Hawaii, USA. junji@hawaii.edu.
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Machi
authors.affiliation: Medical Education Development Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Gifu University, Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. saikitak@gifu-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Takuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saiki
authors.affiliation: Medical Education Development Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Gifu University, Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. ysuz@gifu-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Yasuyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka. gomindap@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Gominda
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ponnamperuma
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D005260:Female; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012570:School Admission Criteria