Abstract

Institutions involved in training health professionals are permanently concerned with improving the quality of their graduates and their skills for meeting healthcare demands. Research has been conducted in the field of health education and related areas with the purpose of identifying the incidence of high-school GPAs, learning styles and demographic factors on pre-university performance of students. It has been widely assumed that performance at this stage is one of the best predictors of subsequent academic performance. In the year 2000 the School of Medicine of the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba introduced an Entrance Examination as part of a comprehensive curricular reform. Therefore, the study of the predictors of performance in the entrance examination can be a valuable contribution to pedagogical decision making. Our aim is to assess the predictive capacity of a series of indicators associated to the population of candidates attempting entrance to medical studies. The survey comprises the period 2006-2008. The variables under study are: sociodemographic characteristics, high-school specialization, and high-school grade point average (GPA). ANOVA was applied to measurable variables, whereas attribute variables were submitted to categorical data and multiple correspondence analyses. We conclude that predictors are associated to sociocultural factors related to family environment, mainly educational level of the mother, and to a high-school GPA value between 8 and 9 points.