Investigating Group Differences in Examinees’ Preparation for and Performance on the New MCAT Exam

In 2015, the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) was redesigned to better assess the concepts and reasoning skills students need to be ready for the medical school curriculum. During the new exam’s design and rollout, careful attention was paid to the opportunities examinees had to learn the new content and their access to free and low-cost preparation resources. The design committee aimed to mitigate possible unintended effects of the redesign, specifically increasing historical mean group differences in MCAT scores for examinees from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds and races/ethnicities underrepresented in medicine compared with those from higher SES backgrounds and races/ethnicities not underrepresented in medicine.
Source: Academic Medicine - Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Articles Source Type: research