Proficiency testing for admission to the postgraduate family medicine education

In Belgium, there are no family medicine admission requirements. A three-phase admission program is developed and implemented by the collaboration of four involved universities.

A pilot testing of phase 2, comprising actual proficiency test, is designed as answer to two research questions: What is the validity and reliability of a multicomponent proficiency test? How does a multicomponent proficiency test proportionate to the final grades of family medicine master candidates?

The population consisted of all last master-phase students applying for family medicine education in Flanders. Students completed a machine-assisted test on knowledge and situational judgment skills and evidence-based medicine appraisal.

In total, 322 students completed the test. A regression analysis measuring the relationship between the master grades and the test score revealed an odds ratio of 1.1. Analysis of variance showed that the differences were significant between the upper quartile and the lowest quartile of the test results. A qualitative appraisal of the test results showed that the highest and lowest quartiles of the full-test score included the students who were, respectively, known as "very good" or "very poor."

The test scores were in agreement with the performance and profiling of the participating students. The test succeeded in identifying poor-performing students and in confirming competences of the average- and high-performing students. In the future, retesting will add to the statements on reliability and will refine the test construction. Follow-up will address validity.