WEDNESDAY, March 6, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Performance on the 2020 Internal Medicine In-Training Examination did not substantively differ across in-person and remote examinees, according to a study published online Jan. 29 in Academic Medicine.
Thai Q. Ong, Ph.D., from the National Board of Medical Examiners in Philadelphia, and colleagues evaluated the extent to which scores obtained from both testing modalities (in-person and remote proctoring) were comparable. The analysis included 27,115 residents completing the 2020 Internal Medicine In-Training Examination.
The researchers found that 42 percent tested remotely and 58 percent in person. The only statistically significant effects were the interaction between testing mode (interaction effect, −0.61) and postgraduate year (PGY; interaction effect, −0.54). For PGY-1, the differences between in-person and remote predicted scores were slightly larger compared with PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents, when controlling for the other predictors. However, the magnitude of these differences across residency training was well under a single percentage point. These statistically significant effects were deemed educationally nonsignificant.
"Residency programs choose remotely proctored testing to accommodate a myriad of scheduling challenges, and they should be reassured that they can continue to enjoy the flexibility of this self-assessment testing modality, with results comparable to in-person testing results," study coauthor Margaret Wells, also from the National Board of Medical Examiners, said in a statement.
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