A modified honours grading system and the selection of postgraduate trainees

The selection of medical graduates for postgraduate training has often been considered to be unreliable and arbitrary because of the quality of information made available by medical schools to program directors. Many faculties of medicine have changed from reporting graduate performance in percentage grades to using an honours/pass/fail grading system to ensure that clearly established criteria for competence have been met and to encourage excellence and minimize competition. Unfortunately, the honours/pass/fail grading system has not been able to give a clear statement of relative class standing to assist in postgraduate selection. This paper describes a modified honours grading system, which takes into account a student's grade, the relative weighting of a course and the number of honours grades awarded per course. The proposed system was found to rank students in a way similar to that of the traditional percentage grading system, with no significant loss in internal consistency. The modified honours grading system permits faculties that use honours/pass/fail grades to report student performance and class standing, thereby assisting program directors in the selection of medical students for postgraduate training.