The Relationship Between Performance on a Medical School's Clinical Skills Assessment and USMLE Step 2 CS

Background Little is known about the relationship between performance on clinical assessments during medical school and performance on similar licensing tests. Method Correlation coefficients were computed and corrected for measurement error using data for 217 students who completed a school's clinical assessment and took the Step 2 Clinical Skills (CS) examination. Results observed (and corrected) correlations between the two tests were 0.18 (0.32) for Data Gathering, 0.35 (0.75) for Documentation, and 0.32 (0.56) for Communication/Interpersonal Skills. The highest correlation within each test was between Documentation and Data Gathering. The lowest was between Documentation and Communication/Interpersonal Skills. Conclusions The pattern of correlations supports each test's construct validity. The low correlations suggest that the tests are not redundant, and do not support using the scores on the school's assessment to predict performance on Step 2 CS. Future studies of these relationships need to address the time between the two assessments and the effect of intervening remedial programs.