Longitudinal study of personality traits in medical students from application to graduation.

The major rationale for the inclusion of any factor as a criterion for student admission to a programme of professional education is that the factor should relate in an obvious and empirical way to the professional performance that is the objective of the educational programme. Prerequisite to this is the assumption that the factor, as measured, will be relatively stable in individuals in the interval ‘application-professional activity’. The testing of this assumption with respect to ‘personality’ as measured by a standardized paper and pencil personality assessment instrument was the objective of this study. A fundamental tenet of psychological trait theory asserts that there is relatively little likelihood of radically altering the personality structure of medical students during their training. This assumption is implicit in all research exploring the validity of cognitive and noncognitive variables as admissions criteria. It is basic to the reasoning used by admissions officers in the search for non-cognitive characteristics in applicants that will assure successful professional performances 5 to 8 years hence. A less rigid point of view suggests that though certain human psychological characteristics exhibit some degree of longitudinal stability, environmental factors can and do, in fact, modify these characteristics. This position implies that rationally designed educational environments may modify these characteristics in a desirable way. A study by hard (1962) of university undergraduates attacked this question directly.