Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training
Background Graduate entry medicine is a recent innovation in UK medical training. Evidence is sparse at present as to progress and attainment on these programmes. Shared clinical rotations, between an established 5-year and a new graduate entry course, provide the opportunity to compare achievement...
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| Format: | Article |
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BioMed Central
2009
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3131/ |
| _version_ | 1848790960390012928 |
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| author | Manning, Gillian Garrud, Paul |
| author_facet | Manning, Gillian Garrud, Paul |
| author_sort | Manning, Gillian |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Background
Graduate entry medicine is a recent innovation in UK medical training. Evidence is sparse at present as to progress and attainment on these programmes. Shared clinical rotations, between an established 5-year and a new graduate entry course, provide the opportunity to compare achievement on clinical assessments. To compare completion and attainment on clinical phase assessments between students on a 4-year graduate entry course and an established 5-year undergraduate medicine course.
Methods
Overall completion rates for the 4 and 5 year courses, fails at first attempt, and scores on 14 clinical assessments, were compared between 171 graduate-entry and 450 undergraduate medical students at the University of Nottingham, comprising two graduating cohorts. Percentage assessment marks were converted to z-scores separately for each graduating year and the normalised marks then combined into a single dataset. Z-score transformed percentage marks were analysed by multivariate analysis of variance and univariate analyses of variance for each summative assessment. Numbers of fails at first attempt were analysed aggregated across all assessments initially, then separately for each assessment using χ2.
Results
Completion rates were around 90% overall and significantly higher in the graduate entry course. Failures of assessments overall were similar, but a higher proportion of graduate entry students failed the final OSLER. Mean performance on clinical assessments showed a significant overall difference, made up of lower performance on 4 of 5 knowledge-based exams (as well as higher performance on the first exam) by the graduate entry group, but similar levels of performance on all the skills-based and attitudinal assessments.
Conclusions
High completion rates are encouraging. The lower performance in some knowledge-based exams may reflect lower prior educational attainment, a substantially different demographic profile (age, gender), or an artefact of the first 2 years of a new graduate entry programme. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:20:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-3131 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:20:55Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | BioMed Central |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-31312020-05-04T16:28:50Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3131/ Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training Manning, Gillian Garrud, Paul Background Graduate entry medicine is a recent innovation in UK medical training. Evidence is sparse at present as to progress and attainment on these programmes. Shared clinical rotations, between an established 5-year and a new graduate entry course, provide the opportunity to compare achievement on clinical assessments. To compare completion and attainment on clinical phase assessments between students on a 4-year graduate entry course and an established 5-year undergraduate medicine course. Methods Overall completion rates for the 4 and 5 year courses, fails at first attempt, and scores on 14 clinical assessments, were compared between 171 graduate-entry and 450 undergraduate medical students at the University of Nottingham, comprising two graduating cohorts. Percentage assessment marks were converted to z-scores separately for each graduating year and the normalised marks then combined into a single dataset. Z-score transformed percentage marks were analysed by multivariate analysis of variance and univariate analyses of variance for each summative assessment. Numbers of fails at first attempt were analysed aggregated across all assessments initially, then separately for each assessment using χ2. Results Completion rates were around 90% overall and significantly higher in the graduate entry course. Failures of assessments overall were similar, but a higher proportion of graduate entry students failed the final OSLER. Mean performance on clinical assessments showed a significant overall difference, made up of lower performance on 4 of 5 knowledge-based exams (as well as higher performance on the first exam) by the graduate entry group, but similar levels of performance on all the skills-based and attitudinal assessments. Conclusions High completion rates are encouraging. The lower performance in some knowledge-based exams may reflect lower prior educational attainment, a substantially different demographic profile (age, gender), or an artefact of the first 2 years of a new graduate entry programme. BioMed Central 2009-12-22 Article PeerReviewed Manning, Gillian and Garrud, Paul (2009) Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training. BMC Medical Education, 9 (76). 76/1-76/5. ISSN 1472-6920 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/9/76 doi:10.1186/1472-6920-9-76 doi:10.1186/1472-6920-9-76 |
| spellingShingle | Manning, Gillian Garrud, Paul Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title | Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title_full | Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title_fullStr | Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title_full_unstemmed | Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title_short | Comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| title_sort | comparative attainment of 5-year undergraduate and 4-year graduate entry medical students moving into foundation training |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3131/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3131/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3131/ |