Medical education
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Comparative Study
Comparison of trait and ability measures of emotional intelligence in medical students.
Emotional intelligence (EI), the ability to perceive emotions in the self and others, and to understand, regulate and use such information in productive ways, is believed to be important in health care delivery for both recipients and providers of health care. There are two types of EI measure: ability and trait. Ability and trait measures differ in terms of both the definition of constructs and the methods of assessment. Ability measures conceive of EI as a capacity that spans the border between reason and feeling. Items on such a measure include showing a person a picture of a face and asking what emotion the pictured person is feeling; such items are scored by comparing the test-taker's response to a keyed emotion. Trait measures include a very large array of non-cognitive abilities related to success, such as self-control. Items on such measures ask individuals to rate themselves on such statements as: 'I generally know what other people are feeling.' Items are scored by giving higher scores to greater self-assessments. We compared one of each type of test with the other for evidence of reliability, convergence and overlap with personality. ⋯ Different tests that are supposed to measure EI do not measure the same thing. The ability measure was not correlated with personality, but the trait measure was correlated with personality.
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The term 'validity' is used pervasively in medical education, especially as it relates to curriculum, assessment, measurement and instrumentation. Exactly what is meant by the term 'validity' in the medical education literature is not always clearly defined. ⋯ Assessment is integral to measurement and decision making in medical education. The implications of assessment results are variably dependent on the inferences and decisions made from them. As such, validity evidence is critical, but is also flexibly tied to those decisions and not all assessments require the same degree of validity rigor. The framework described herein reinforces a model for medical educators to use in developing their assessment and evaluation needs and associated requirements for validity evidence.
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Attempts to reduce doctors' working hours and streamline postgraduate medical training may mean junior doctors' out-of-hours experience is reduced. It is also proposed that, in the UK, compulsory clinical (Foundation Programme) competencies are to be accomplished in 1 year rather than 2 years as they are at present. This observational study was performed to examine the scope of opportunity available to junior doctors to achieve such competencies while working on a 'Hospital at Night' (H@N) team. ⋯ The H@N initiative provides adequate opportunities for junior doctors to attain important clinical (Foundation) competencies. There appears to be sufficient opportunity to achieve these competencies within 1 year rather than the 2 years currently allowed in the UK Foundation Programme.