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Personality testing? Interesting article in the NYT
- Thread starter ButImLETired
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By the way, Go on facebook and type "Mypersonality"
tehre is test to test openess, concisneorhfnsxdfdfness, extraversion, agreebleness, and neuorotism
tehre is test to test openess, concisneorhfnsxdfdfness, extraversion, agreebleness, and neuorotism
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it would just be another test to beat
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mmm I think I agree with Dr. Chen. MCAT is a great way to test cognitive abilities but it doesn't measure how well you will be able to handle medicine in your life. In my opinion, the MCAT should be used for people going into science research as well because its about remembering information. Doing well on the MCAT does not make you more able to interact with patients comfortably. However, I do believe schools are now placing more emphasis on well rounded people which I appreciate. And like they mentioned, that is what the recommendations, essays, and interviews are for. It is up to the school though to decide what the deem most important or assign the highest value to.
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lol you might want to take a look at what's wrong with your keyboard.
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It'll never work here. The American ideals of working hard and being able to make something of yourself I think are too deeply ingrained in the whole process for a test like this to play any significant part in admissions. We'd all like to believe that if we work really hard, we'll make it. This kinda test would put as too much risk of having some inherent aspect of our personality limiting us no matter hard we work, and I just can't foresee that becoming the norm anytime soon here.
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agreed.
and +1 to just another test to beat
if its anything like those empployment personality test and such, its not hard to pick the right answers
love how the article started with "my son would make a great doctor but wahwahwah..."
sigh.
Yeah. I think the article is trying to argue for more standardization than an interview provides, though. With standardization, you don't have to deal with the problem of interviewer variability where an applicant can get two very different ratings from two different interviewers
The problem with standardization, as bleargh brought up, is that it's just another test to beat -- anyone can mark down that they start conversations and they're the life of the party, but it's harder to fake being extroverted in an interview.
I guess for those reasons, the personality testing thing works pretty well as a study but would be pretty hard to implement as part of the application process.
I suppose maybe a good compromise would be to standardize interviews as much as possible (and therefore try to minimize interviewer variability). This isn't to say that I think every interviewer should ask the same set of questions, but I think having multiple interviewers per applicant and making sure ratings are fairly consistent would be a good start
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blearch said:
Yup, and yup.
Also, there was a personality testing craze in the business world in the 50s. There were a lot of things wrong with it, and a lot of the assumptions they were making got proven untrue.
yeah... i'm introverted (ISFJ FTW!) and neurotic. i'm also highly agreeable and conscientious though, so... ?
whatevs, i'm gonna rock medical school
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Problem with beliefs like that is that we are never taught the belief correctly.
i.e Practice makes perfect - should be Perfect practice makes perfect
For If we work really hard, we'll make it - it should be (just trying to be real here) If we're smart and if we work really hard, we'll make it
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Interesting. So they're using the Big 5 and correlating them to student success. Not much new here, really. The problem with these tests tends to be one of validity. You need candidates to be honest with their answers in order to preserve validity and that's simply not going to happen. I'd suggest a modified version of the CPI (derived from the MMPI but normed to a normal population) renormed to physicians if they wanted to do this. The validity scales available through the MMPI and CPI item subscales would be very helpful in adjusting responses. Of course, there would have to be a threshold (for the F and/or K scales) above which students' scores were simply rejected on the validity scale (suggesting outright deceit, lack of self-awareness, and/or significant psychopathology).
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Well, that's the MCAT my friend.
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That's what validity scales are for. The CPI and MMPI both have them....
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According to the facebook personality test, my two lowest scores were agreeableness and neuroticism. Glad I have a low neuroticism score, but I feel like sometimes it's important to not just agree with everyone else... I'm obviously conscientious enough to agree with superiors though 😛.
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Can anyone top my 52Z personality score? Haven't found a spot for it on MDApps yet...
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Haha. Not feeling agreeability is particularly important should correlate with your low agreeableness score. The two go together. If you weren't agreeable but thought you should be, there'd be a lack of congruency, which some clinical psychology theorists have postulated is a sign of some psychopathology.
On Facebook's version of the Big 5 test, I scored high (65-75%) on everything but neuroticism. On neuroticism, I scored ~40%. FB says this makes me interested in psych, bio, and medicine (how appropriate! lol). Miers-Briggs places me as an ENFP. On the CPI, I was scored as a Level 7 Alpha (7/7 realization/self-awareness/satisfaction & enterprising/outgoing/reliable)... Fun times... interesting stuff, though.
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im ENFJ
im supposidly calm and capable
idealist and probably best career is teaching people,psych,medicine
sounds pretty good lol.
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Agreed - there's not really a way to "beat" a personality test. There are questions built into the test to see if you're purposely trying sound too good, too bad (not likely with pre-meds, lol), or appear a certain way. It will just appear like you're being dishonest - is this what you want the adcom to know?
As a once psych grad student, I don't agree with using current developed personality tests for admissions. The MMPI, for example, is a clinical test to assess for mental illness - it doesn't really fit the purpose for adcoms (unless they wanted to know how manipulative, depressed, or paranoid all us pre-meds are).
I think that schools should do more than 2 interviews with each student. It would provide more information and smooth out possible biases from one interviewer. Also, the interactive types of interviews with group activities can judge how well you work in groups.
Leave it to pre-meds to think you have to be a certain personality type to be an ideal applicant. Nothing is wrong, for example, with being more introverted - maybe radiologists/pathologists are more introverted. And wouldn't you want your physician to have some degree of neuroticism to make sure that all details are in order, double checks test results, etc. Each scale has its strengths and weaknesses associated with it.
And can we NOT post MMPI questions, even if they are already on the internet. This is copyrighted material and reduces the validity of the test if people know what is on them.
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WHY SO SRS?
LOL sometimes posts read as serious without meaning to.
I just have an interest in this topic so I get into it. Psych tests just aren't well understood by many, even within the psych field.LOL sometimes posts read as serious without meaning to.
haha.. im just kidding. its always nice to be passionate, i just found it a ... sudden change in direction of this thread...
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haha.. im just kidding. its always nice to be passionate, i just found it a ... sudden change in direction of this thread...
haha i know...you're kidding is notorious on sdn. 😀
speaking of passionate then...who else is passionate about glee and hopes it wins some shiny hardware at the golden globes? ricky jervais is hilarious.
i dont follow the golden globes, but im glad there is someone with a sense of humour on SDN ... and i thought all was lost! 😀
Yes, I completely agree with Dr. Chen. MCAT is important but seriously, how can you judge if someone can become a doctor or not based on a single score? its just not fair. If someone does well in their classes, presents a well-rounded transcript, participates in EC's, and shows they are really passionate about this, then one he/she should be given a chance. I would not mind taking a personality test. I feel like this would give an adcom more info about whether someone can become a doctor or not. Just my 2 cents.
