Standardized Open-Ended Questionnaires as a Substitute for Personal Interviews in Admissions to Various Educational Programs

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Division I Poster Session

Abstract

There is a recognized need for reliable and valid measures of personality and motivational factors that can predict success and attrition in various educational programs. Currently, most admissions systems measure personality factors by means of the interview. This study discusses several cases in which interviews, with their potential bias, were replaced by open-ended questionnaires (among other tools) thereby increasing standardization and objectivity. The paper describes the rationale for the development of standardized questionnaires adapted to various professional domains, the factors they measure, and various uses of their scores. The generalizability coefficients of these ~20 item questionnaires were between 0.59 and 0.71 (N= 6720). The test-retest correlation was 0.54 (0.61 when corrected for range restriction, based on 517 medical school candidates).

Authors

• Naomi Gafni, National Institute for Testing & Evaluation

• Avital Moshinsky, National Institute for Testing & Evaluation

• Janine P. Woolfson, NITE, Israel