title: Multiple independent sampling within medical school admission interviewing: an "intermediate approach".
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Balancing reliability and resource limitations as well as recruitment activities during admission interviews is a challenge for many medical schools. The Modified Personal Interview (MPI) has been shown to have good psychometric properties while being resource efficient for specialized admission interviews. We describe implementation of an MPI adaptation integrating psychometric rigour alongside resourcing and recruitment goals for larger-scale medical school admission interviewing at the University of Toronto.
  
  
  METHODS
  The MPI was implemented during the 2013-2014 admission cycle. The MPI uses multiple independent sampling by having applicants interviewed in a circuit of four brief semi-structured interviews. Recruitment is reflected in a longer MPI interviewing time to foster a 'human touch'. Psychometric evaluation includes generalizability studies to examine inter-interview reliability and other major sources of error variance. We evaluated MPI impact upon applicant recruitment yield and resourcing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MPI reliability is 0.56. MPI implementation maintained recruitment compared with previous year. MPI implementation required 160 interviewers for 600 applicants whereas for pre-MPI implementation 290 interviewers were required to interview 587 applicants. MPI score correlated with first year OSCE performance at 0.30 (p < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MPI reliability is measured at 0.56 alongside enhanced resource utilization and maintenance of recruitment yield. This 'intermediate approach' may enable broader institutional uptake of integrated multiple independent sampling-based admission interviewing within institution-specific resourcing and recruitment goals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. mark.hanson@sickkids.ca.|Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. mark.hanson@sickkids.ca.
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Hanson
authors.affiliation: The Wilson Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Nicole N
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Maria Athina
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Martimianakis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.|Humber River Regional Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Raj
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rasasingham
authors.affiliation: The Wilson Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Kulamakan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kulasegaram
keywords: Admissions; Caring; Competencies; Empathy; Interviewing