2024 Scholars' Research Symposium Abstract: ARPID-I: Initial Findings in Medical Students' Professional Identity Development.

Abstract

Introduction: Professional identity is one of the frequently used and least clearly defined terms in healthcare education. Its simplest definition includes feeling, thinking, and acting like a representative of a given professional group. Many other aspects of professional identity exist. Professional identity development (PID) adds another layer of complexity to the topic for educators attempting to assess the process and dynamically measure its individual components. The project's aim was to re-define the term professional identity and create a battery of instruments to assess its development in medical students.

Methods: The first module, Assessment Rubric of Professional Identity Development (ARPID) was developed, piloted, reviewed, and deployed. ARPID is a 20-item multi-domain survey that assesses the following medical student characteristics: knowledge, skills, attitudes, feelings, readiness to act like a professional, confidence in decisionmaking, ability to sort relevant and irrelevant issues, ability to shift from fact-based to concept-based and metacognitive reasoning, ability to address ethical issues, and operate in the areas of clinical uncertainty. Answers to each question covered the range from novice to experienced professional. The survey was distributed to an entire body of medical students at a mid-western medical school in the U.S. 74 student responses were collected (26% response rate). Statistical analysis of the collected data included mean and standard deviation of confidence levels in each medical school class. Additionally, Spearman's rho analysis was performed on two sequential questions to better assess correlation of student's self-assessment and actual knowledge.

Results: Survey questions analyzing mean confidence, knowledge, and competence levels exhibited a positive relationship between these factors and years in medical school. Additionally, several aspects of data exhibited a Dunning-Kruger like trend involving knowledge and mean confidence level as medical students progressed through training. Spearman's rho analysis assessing correlation between confidence and competence level in students displayed a positive correlation in the first- and fourth-year student cohorts, and no correlation in the second- and third-year cohorts. The first-year cohort displayed a rho value of 0.510 with a p-value of 0.009. The second-year cohort displayed a rho of 0.000 with a p-value of 1.000, the third-year cohort displayed a rho of 0.002 with a p-value of 0.995, and the fourth-year cohort displayed a rho value of 0.497 with a p-value of 0.042.

Conclusions: ARPID is a component in the battery of instruments used to measure and monitor medical students' PID. Given the importance of determining and following medical students' PID to optimize medical curricula and support students, this tool will enhance the way educators approach healthcare education and training.