Validation of the General Medicine in-Training Examination Using the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board Examination Among Postgraduate Residents in Japan
Open accessAbstract
Purpose: In Japan, the General Medicine In-training Examination (GM-ITE) was developed by a non-profit organization in 2012. The GM-ITE aimed to assess the general clinical knowledge among residents and to improve the training programs; however, it has not been sufficiently validated and is not used for high-stake decision-making. This study examined the association between GM-ITE and another test measure, the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) 1 examination. Methods: Ninety-seven residents who completed the GM-ITE in fiscal year 2019 were recruited and took the PLAB 1 examination in Japanese. The association between two tests was assessed using the Pearson product-moment statistics. The discrimination indexes were also assessed for each question. Results: A total of 91 residents at 17 teaching hospitals were finally included in the analysis, of whom 69 (75.8%) were women and 59 (64.8%) were postgraduate second year residents. All the participants were affiliated with community hospitals. Positive correlations were demonstrated between the GM-ITE and the PLAB scores ( r = 0.58, p < 0.001). The correlations between the PLAB score and the scores in GM-ITE categories were as follows: symptomatology/clinical reasoning ( r = 0.54, p < 0.001), physical examination/procedure ( r = 0.38, p < 0.001), medical interview/professionalism ( r = 0.25, p < 0.001), and disease knowledge ( r = 0.36, p < 0.001). The mean discrimination index of each question of the GM-ITE (mean ± SD; 0.23 ± 0.15) was higher than that of the PLAB (0.16 ± 0.16; p = 0.004). Conclusion: This study demonstrates incremental validity evidence of the GM-ITE to assess the clinical knowledge acquisition. The results indicate that GM-ITE can be widely used to improve resident education in Japan. Keywords: in-training examination, validity, extrapolation, General Medicine In-Training Examination, Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board, medical knowledge, postgraduate medical education
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Kozu, T. (2006) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/01.acm.0000246682.45610.dd · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
- Authors
- Nagasaki, K., Nishizaki, Y., Nojima, M., Shimizu, T., Konishi, R., Okubo, T., Yamamoto, Y., Morishima, R., Kobayashi, H., & Tokuda, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Tsukuba (JP)
- Juntendo University (JP)
- Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Dokkyo Medical University Hospital (JP)
- Japan Organization of Occupational Health and Safety (JP)
- National Center for University Entrance Examinations (JP)
- Jichi Medical University (JP)
- Tokyo Metropolitan Neurological Hospital (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Nishizaki, Yuji
- ORCID
- Venue
- International Journal of General Medicine
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2021-10
- Volume
- Volume 14
- Pages
- 6487-6495
- ISSN
- 1178-7074 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8504475
- OpenAlex
- W3204286934
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 6.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of General Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Dove Medical Press (Taylor and Francis Group) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- University of Tokyo
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Medical Education and Admissions
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Education and Assessments
- Keywords
- incremental validity, in-training examination, graduate medical education, clinical knowledge assessment, test discrimination
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
