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Description of an examination for the objective assessment of history‐taking ability
Author(s) -
NOWOTNY R. E.,
GROVE D. I.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1982.tb01261.x
Subject(s) - standardization , medical history , physical examination , degree (music) , psychology , value (mathematics) , medicine , medical education , family medicine , clinical psychology , statistics , surgery , mathematics , computer science , physics , acoustics , operating system
Summary A novel examination of the ability of final‐year medical students to take a targeted history is described. One hundred and nine students were examined in 1 day. Each student interviewed three patients, each with a different problem. One of these persons was a real patient, while the other two were simulated patients. Patients were able to give consistent histories and the use of simulated patients enabled a high degree of standardization to be achieved. The examination provided a useful degree of discrimination among students; the marks scored followed a normal distribution with a mean value of 22.2 and a range from 16 to 29 out of a maximum of 30 marks. We believe that this examination is valid, reliable and practical