Faculty prediction of in-training examination scores of emergency medicine residents: A multicenter study

Background The Emergency Medicine In-Training Examination (EMITE) is one of the few validated instruments for medical knowledge assessment of emergency medicine (EM) residents. The EMITE is administered only once annually, with results available just 2 months before the end of the academic year. An earlier predictor of EMITE scores would be helpful for educators to institute timely remediation plans. A previous single-site study found that only 69% of faculty predictions of EMITE scores were accurate. Objective The goal of this article was to measure the accuracy with which EM faculty at five residency programs could predict EMITE scores for resident physicians. Methods We asked EM faculty at five different residency programs to predict the 2014 EMITE scores for all their respective resident physicians. The primary outcome was prediction accuracy, defined as the proportion of predictions within 6% of the actual scores. The secondary outcome was prediction precision, defined as the mean deviation of predictions from the actual scores. We assessed faculty background variables for correlation with the two outcomes. Results One hundred and eleven faculty participated in the study (response rate 68.9%). Mean prediction accuracy for all faculty was 60.0%. Mean prediction precision was 6.3%. Participants were slightly more accurate at predicting scores of noninterns compared to interns. No faculty background variable correlated with the primary or secondary outcomes. Eight participants predicted scores with high accuracy (>80%). Conclusions In this multicenter study, EM faculty possessed only moderate accuracy at predicting resident EMITE scores. A very small subset of faculty members is highly accurate.