Twenty Questions game performance on medical school entrance predicts clinical performance

• Published in: Medical education Vol. 49; no. 9; pp. 920 - 927
• Main Authors: Williams, Reed G, Klamen, Debra L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2015; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adult; College Admission Test; Educational Measurement - methods; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Problem Solving; School Admission Criteria; Schools, Medical; Students, Medical - psychology
• ISSN: 0308-0110; 1365-2923
• DOI: 10.1111/medu.12758

Context This study is based on the premise that the game of ‘Twenty Questions’ (TQ) tests the knowledge people acquire through their lives and how well they organise and store it so that they can effectively retrieve, combine and use it to address new life challenges. Therefore, performance on TQ may predict how effectively medical school applicants will organise and store knowledge they acquire during medical training to support their work as doctors. Objectives This study was designed to determine whether TQ game performance on medical school entrance predicts performance on a clinical performance examination near graduation. Methods This prospective, longitudinal, observational study involved each medical student in one class playing a game of TQ on a non‐medical topic during the first week of medical school. Near graduation, these students completed a 14‐case clinical performance examination. Performance on the TQ task was compared with performance on the clinical performance examination. Results The 24 students who exhibited a logical approach to the TQ task performed better on all senior clinical performance examination measures than did the 26 students who exhibited a random approach. Approach to the task was a better predictor of senior examination diagnosis justification performance than was the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) Biological Science Test score and accounts for a substantial amount of score variation not attributable to a co‐relationship with MCAT Biological Science Test performance. Conclusions Approach to the TQ task appears to be one reasonable indicator of how students process and store knowledge acquired in their everyday lives and may be a useful predictor of how they will process the knowledge acquired during medical training. The TQ task can be fitted into one slot of a mini medical interview. Discuss ideas arising from the article at www.mededuc.com discuss.