Predictability of Medical Colleges’ Entrance Test in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictability of the medical college entrance test in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, conducted by the Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA). Predictability was evaluated as an index of the relationship between the predictors (F.Sc Marks, Entrance test marks, and aggregate score) and the criterion (MBBS 1st-year Score to final-year score). The population of the study consists of 5500 students enrolled in the 10 public-sector medical colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whereas 2765 (50%) of the students were taken as a sample of the study from five cohorts (2012-2016) of 10 public-sector medical colleges affiliated with Khyber Medical University, Peshawar. The scores of both the predictors and criterion were entered in SPSS version 25 for analysis. Descriptive statistics, regression, and correlation were used to find the statistical relationship between the predictors and criterion. The results obtained showed moderately high correlations between the predictors and criterion. The regression analysis reveals that the F.Sc score was found to be the best predictor with a first-year score of medical colleges. It is concluded from the study that the current criterion for selecting students for medical colleges are good, and the entrance test for KP medical colleges was found to be valid. It is suggested that non-cognitive factors should also be incorporated into the admission practices to further assess the personal dimension of a student.