MRCGP CSA: are the examiners biased, favouring their own by sex, ethnicity, and degree source?

作者：Denney Mei Ling; Freeman Adrian; Wakeford Richard^*

来源：British Journal of General Practice, 2013, 63(616): E718-E725.

DOI：10.3399/bjgp13X674396

• educational measurement
• foreign medical graduates
• general practice
• racism
• sexism

Background %26lt;br%26gt;Concern exists regarding differential performance of candidates in postgraduate clinical assessments by ethnicity, sex, and country of primary qualification. Could examiner bias be responsible? %26lt;br%26gt;Aim %26lt;br%26gt;To explore whether candidate demographics affect examiners%26apos; judgements, by investigating candidates%26apos; case performances by candidates%26apos; and examiners%26apos; demographics. %26lt;br%26gt;Design and setting %26lt;br%26gt;Data on 4000 candidates (52 000 cases) sitting the MRCGP clinical skills assessment in 2011-2012. %26lt;br%26gt;Method %26lt;br%26gt;Univariate analyses were undertaken of subgroup performance (male/female, white/black and minority ethnic (BME), UK/non-UK graduates) by parallel examiner demographics. Due to confounding of variables, these were complemented by multivariate ANOVA and multiple regression analyses. %26lt;br%26gt;Results %26lt;br%26gt;Univariate analysis showed some differences between outcomes between the same-group and other-group examiners: these were contradictory regarding examiners %26apos;favouring their own%26apos;, for example, males received higher marks from female examiners than from males: maximum effect size was 3.6%. A six-way ANOVA confirmed all three candidate and examiner variables as having significant effects individually, identifying one significant interaction (examiner sex by examiner ethnicity). Stepwise regression showed candidate variables predicting 12% of score variance, parallel examiner demographics adding little (approximately 0.2% of variance). One %26apos;transactional%26apos; variable proved significant, explaining 0.06% of score variance. %26lt;br%26gt;Conclusion %26lt;br%26gt;Examiners show no general tendency to %26apos;favour their own kind%26apos;. With confounding between variables, as far as the impact on candidates%26apos; case scores, substantial effects relate to candidate and not examiner characteristics. Candidate-examiner interaction effects were inconsistent in their direction and slight in their calculated impact.

• 出版日期2013-11