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A Comparison of Behavioral and Multiple Mini‐Interview Formats in Physician Assistant Program Admissions

Purpose: The interview remains a widely used tool in health professions program admissions. The purpose of this study was to compare the use of a behavioral interview format with the multiple mini‐interview format in measuring desired noncognitive behaviors. Methods: This dual cohort, observational, comparative study used a polytomous ratingscale model to analyze the results from two homogeneous groups of physician assistant (PA) program applicants (total N = 176). One group (n = 93) participated in two 20‐minute behavioral interviews conducted by two raters per interviewee. The behavioral format included questions related to past behaviors and performance as a way to identify latent professionalism characteristics. The second group (n = 83) completed ten separate 7‐minute stations with one rater per station. Each of the mini‐stations assigned a specific topic and/or task to be completed. The score distributions related to applicant performance and station difficulty were plotted using Rasch analysis software. Results: The behavioral interview format and multiple mini‐interview had similar model fit. The behavioral interview did not adequately measure differences in applicant characteristics. In contrast, the multiple mini‐interview measured more variation in noncognitive traits and identified better matching of station difficulty and person ability. Conclusions: In this study the multiple mini‐interview format was a more reliable admissions tool in detecting latent professionalism attributes among PA program applicants. The multiple mini‐interview format appeared to measure professional potential and organizational fit better than the behavioral interview format. A larger study across several programs may provide additional support for these findings.