Utility of a writing station in the multiple mini-interview.

The multiple mini-interview (MMI) is a reliable and valid method of selecting applicants for admission to health professional schools on the basis of non-cognitive traits. Because the MMI is a series of short interview stations that applicants rotate through in coordinated sequence, it can potentially be resource intensive. However, the MMI design has room for innovation and efficiency. At the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, a 10-minute unsupervised writing station (WS) was incorporated into the MMI to obtain a writing sample from each applicant, to increase the number of independent scores per applicant, and to increase the number of applicants interviewed per circuit without increasing interviewer numbers. One assessor evaluated all the writing samples and assigned a score ranging from 1 to 7. With the inclusion of a WS into an 11-station MMI, the faculty's capacity to interview applicants increased by 9% (from 297 to 324) without substantially increasing interviewer hours needed per day. For 1,257 applicants interviewed in 2008-2011, the mean WS score was 4.03 (SD=1.36), whereas applicants' mean of 10 oral station (OS) scores was 4.62 (SD=0.69). Correlations between WS score and mean OS score ranged from .16 to .27 (p<.01) over the four years. Because inter-station correlations for OS ranged from .01 to .37, the correlation of .21 between WS and mean OS scores for all four years combined appears reasonable. Institutions that want to effectively increase the capacity of their MMI process might consider adding a WS.