The Correlation between Medical Student's Scores in their Physiopathology and Clinical Courses in Kerman University of Medical Sciences

Background and The relation of comprehensive exams scores and other measures of students’ performance has been of great importance. This study is an attempt to assess the associations between medical students’ scores in physiopathology and clinical courses and to compare these scores with their scores in the comprehensive exams. Medical students’ scores in their courses and also in their comprehensive exam in six consecutive years were collected. Using Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression, we assessed the associations between students’ scores and their personal characteristics, and the consistency between theoretical and practical courses. In addition, we computed difficulty and discrimination indices of students’ scores in their courses by comparing these scores with comprehensive clinical exam (CPE). A total of 481 students’ score were included. Females and younger students score higher.CPE were predicted by students’ scores and their characteristics rather accurately with the adjusted R2 of 0.59. Students’ scores in pathology and in thesis had the highest and lowest discrimination indices, while the difficulties of these two courses were in reverse order. The strongest association was observed between theoretical and practical scores in internal medicine while the associations between theoretical and practical scores in the other courses were not strong although all of them were statistically significant. Using this approach to explore the students’ score, might highlight the weak points of current educational system. For example we found that the students’ score in thesis had the lowest association; although students obtained very high score in this course. Using our method with scores of students in other medical schools may provide better understanding of medical students performance’s relation with countrywide comprehensive exam.