Longitudinal relationships between Korean medical students’ academic performance in medical knowledge and clinical performance examinations: a retrospective longitudinal study

This study investigated the longitudinal relationships between performance on 3 examinations assessing medical knowledge and clinical skills among Korean medical students in the clinical phase. This study addressed the stability of each examination score and the interrelationships among examinations over time. A retrospective longitudinal study was conducted at Yonsei University College of Medicine in Korea with a cohort of 112 medical students over 2 years. The students were in their third year in 2022 and progressed to the fourth year in 2023. We obtained comprehensive clinical science examination (CCSE) and progress test (PT) scores 3 times (T1–T3), and clinical performance examination (CPX) scores twice (T1 and T2). Autoregressive cross-lagged models were fitted to analyze their relationships.

本研究探讨了韩国临床阶段医学生在评估医学知识与临床技能的3项考试中成绩的纵向关系。本研究还分析了各项考试成绩的稳定性及不同考试间随时间的相互关系。本研究为回顾性纵向研究，在韩国延世大学医学院开展，纳入了112名医学生队列，研究周期为2年。这些学生2022年为三年级，2023年升入四年级。我们获取了综合临床科学考试（comprehensive clinical science examination, CCSE）和进展测试（progress test, PT）的3次成绩（T1-T3），以及临床技能考试（clinical performance examination, CPX）的2次成绩（T1和T2）。采用自回归交叉滞后模型（autoregressive cross-lagged model）分析上述关系。