The Association between Interview and Written Exam in Graduate Student Admission of Medical Education and Rehabilitation Management

Introduction: In 2007 and the years before, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education invited MS volunteers in different disciplines such as rehabilitation management and medical education for interview in addition to written exam. This study tried to determine the role of interview in students' admission in medical education and rehabilitation management during the years 2006 and 2007 and also the association between interview and written exam. Methods: In this study, the scores of interview, written exam, total exam, and written exam materials were extracted separately. Then, statistical parameters such as mean, standard deviation, and correlation between scores were calculated by MINITAB-15 software. It was tried to investigate the medical education and rehabilitation management examination results using correlation coefficient and frequency distribution. This study also investigated the association between interview and written exam and their role in students' admission. Results: The correlation coefficient between interview and written exam scores in medical education examinations was higher than the ones for rehabilitations management which demonstrates a closer linear correlation between interview score and written exam score in medical education examination. Correlation coefficient and frequency distribution in rehabilitation management examination, showed no logical relation-ship between interview and written exam scores. Conclusion: Considering non-equivalent changes appeared in medical education and rehabilitation manage-ment examinations, we can learn about lack of coordination in interviews of different groups. Therefore, it seems that it is better to change the interviews more toward structural, multi-aspect, and individual instead of accumulative and qualitative.