Matriculating Student Questionnaire Discussion Thread

[freak7]

Hello everyone. I wanted to make a thread discussing this year's MSQ study design and methodology. I'm a sucker for survey design and I figured a good amount of you all would be too. I'm going to try to keep a running log of everything that pops out to me as interesting.

The first thing I've noticed is the "deeper understanding of others" question seems a little odd without first asking about the participants' backgrounds. I understand that medicine is a skewed field (there's a math joke there, but I'll spare you) and that the results of these questions will probably get the data the designers wanted, but I feel like somebody, like me for instance, who has an unusual background may end up messing with the results. Specifically the "socioeconomic background" question strikes me as pretty flawed. If you come from either end of the bell curve, nearly everybody you will meet and talk with/exchange viewpoints will be from a different background as you because you're the odd case.

The next thing that caught my eye was the "... FORMAL advising... how important were the following..." question. The prompt here seems somewhat ambiguous. The question doesn't state whether it was important to you or your adviser(s). If taken literally, the two clauses seem independent of each other; it's almost like a beauty pageant-type questions where the start of the question doesn't signal the end. I'm left a bit confused on how to answer. Is it just asking my own opinion on what I deem important? If so, why mention the first part? Sad!

I'll try to keep updating this thread with further ramblings.

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[freak7]

The next thing that caught my eye was the "... FORMAL advising... how important were the following..." question. The prompt here seems somewhat ambiguous. The question doesn't state whether it was important to you or your adviser(s). If taken literally, the two clauses seem independent of each other; it's almost like a beauty pageant-type questions where the start of the question doesn't signal the end. I'm left a bit confused on how to answer. Is it just asking my own opinion on what I deem important? If so, why mention the first part? Sad!

And another thing with this prompt. Let's say you had a horrific adviser who didn't help you at all. Do you select not applicable or not important? If the issue never came up and it was coming from a place of negligence then both answers apply equally well. Shame shame.

 

[Psi Corps]

Hello everyone. I wanted to make a thread discussing this year's MSQ study design and methodology. I'm a sucker for survey design and I figured a good amount of you all would be too. I'm going to try to keep a running log of everything that pops out to me as interesting.

The first thing I've noticed is the "deeper understanding of others" question seems a little odd without first asking about the participants' backgrounds. I understand that medicine is a skewed field (there's a math joke there, but I'll spare you) and that the results of these questions will probably get the data the designers wanted, but I feel like somebody, like me for instance, who has an unusual background may end up messing with the results. Specifically the "socioeconomic background" question strikes me as pretty flawed. If you come from either end of the bell curve, nearly everybody you will meet and talk with/exchange viewpoints will be from a different background as you because you're the odd case.

The next thing that caught my eye was the "... FORMAL advising... how important were the following..." question. The prompt here seems somewhat ambiguous. The question doesn't state whether it was important to you or your adviser(s). If taken literally, the two clauses seem independent of each other; it's almost like a beauty pageant-type questions where the start of the question doesn't signal the end. I'm left a bit confused on how to answer. Is it just asking my own opinion on what I deem important? If so, why mention the first part? Sad!

I'll try to keep updating this thread with further ramblings.

I noticed that too. The formal advising question got on my nerves.

 

[LutGholein]

Let's say you had a horrific adviser who didn't help you at all. Do you select not applicable or not important?

I selected not applicable. I wouldn't call my formal(mandatory assigned) adviser horrible but they kinda didn't have the slightest clue about current med school admissions. I'm curious how the results will look--I agree the formal adviser questions seem ....weird.

 

[libertyyne]

I selected not applicable. I wouldn't call my formal(mandatory assigned) adviser horrible but they kinda didn't have the slightest clue about current med school admissions. I'm curious how the results will look--I agree the formal adviser questions seem ....weird.

IMHO if your advisor doesnt have the slightest clue about current medical school admissions, that would meet the horrible advising criteria.

 

[freak7]

I selected not applicable. I wouldn't call my formal(mandatory assigned) adviser horrible but they kinda didn't have the slightest clue about current med school admissions. I'm curious how the results will look--I agree the formal adviser questions seem ....weird.

But at the same time it was unimportant to them, else they would've brought it up! Just a terrible terrible question.

 

[LutGholein]

IMHO if your advisor doesnt have the slightest clue about current medical school admissions, that would meet the horrible advising criteria.

True, but they did provide some info on how to schedule certain academic major prereqs so i'd rather not call them horrible--just unaware of the med admissions process.

 

[freak7]

True, but they did provide some info on how to schedule certain academic major prereqs so i'd rather not call them horrible--just unaware of the med admissions process.

Ignorance and/or unwillingness to connect you with somebody who knows more about the process meets my horrible criteria for pre-med advising. By saying they were horrible in that regard doesn't mean that they're bad people or were willfully sabotaging or anything, they were just poor people to fill that role.

 

[LutGholein]

Ignorance and/or unwillingness to connect you with somebody who knows more about the process meets my horrible criteria for pre-med advising. By saying they were horrible in that regard doesn't mean that they're bad people or were willfully sabotaging or anything, they were just poor people to fill that role.

Perhaps you're right, I guess I could put not important. In all honesty I didn't really place a huge amount of stock on what they said-- I relied more on my informal advisor/mentor for questions regarding the process.

And of course the best advisor that money can't buy--- SDN!!! This single website guided me immensely.

 

[libertyyne]

Perhaps you're right, I guess I could put not important. In all honesty I didn't really place a huge amount of stock on what they said-- I relied more on my informal advisor/mentor for questions regarding the process.

And of course the best advisor that money can't buy--- SDN!!! This single website guided me immensely.

This is where you are mistaken. Libertyyne™ admission consultants can be retained for a reasonable fee.

 

[freak7]

This is where you are mistaken. Libertyyne™ admission consultants can be retained for a reasonable fee.

Do I pay you in berries or some ****?

 

[freak7]

Tin foil hat thought: The AAMC doesn't actually use the data from this survey. It's just there to troll us. The real survey was hidden in the annals of the MCAT's P/S section so that way nobody could remember what it said.

 

[libertyyne]

Do I pay you in berries or some ****?

 

[freak7]

I understand that medicine is a skewed field (there's a math joke there, but I'll spare you)

I lied, I am a liar.

 

[Yorick]

I don't remember all the questions, but I thought it sort of felt like a personality test when I filled it out.

 

[freak7]

Also jigsaw puzzle?

 

[freak7]

The "two sides to every question" question is super-flawed too. Nobody should be checking anything other than 1 on that because of the willy-nilly use of the word "every". If I presented a case that has 3 sides, then it's automatically false. AAMC PLZ

 

[libertyyne]

The questions clearly seemed like they were agenda driven, I wonder if they have IRB approved studies associated with these questions, and if your SES status grants you a different set of questions.

 

[all things possible]

Some of the questions defintely made me a little uncomfortable. This was probably due to the fact that I was a little confused on what they were asking and why they were asking a few of them.