Hull, M.L., & Stocks, M.T. (1995). Relationship between Quantity of Undergraduate Science Preparation and Preclinical Performance in Medical School. Academic Medicine, 70, 230-235.

PURPOSE: To determine whether a relationship exists between the quantities of undergraduate science education completed by medical school students and their subsequent preclinical performance in medical school and to determine the nature of any relationship present and to confirm standard predictors of preclinical performance in medical school.

METHOD: The study was undertaken at the Albany Medical College in conjunction with Sage Graduate School. A total of 200 student records from the entering class of 1977 through 1992 were used for analyses. A total of twelve distinct variables with which standard descriptive statistics, correlation between variables, t-tests between systematically and randomly selected groups, and factor analysis were performed. The predictors were science GPA, cumulative GPA, and MCAT score. The other nine variables were used to explore the relationship between the quantity of undergraduate science completed and preclinical performance, they were: hours of chemisty, hours of biology, hours of math, hours of physics, total hours of science, NBME I score, year one preclinical performance, year two preclinical performance and average preclinical performance.

RESULTS: The authors found there to be low but significant correlation coefficients between total hours of science completed and each of the GPA measures: .2590 for total hours of science and science GPA and .1441 for total hours of science and cumulative GPA, significant at the .01 and .05 levels, respectively. In addition, low but significant correlation findings also held true for science hours completed within the individual science subdivision and either of the two GPA subdivisions as well. For example, hours of chemistry and hours of biology correlate with science GPA at .1595 and .1735 respectively, both significant at the .05 level. The coefficient between science and NBME I is .2226 and is significant at the .01 level, indicating that while large, performance in the undergraduate sciences is linked to an examination designed to measure preclinical performance in medical school (NBME I) rather than the examination designed to measure overall medical school aptitude (MCAT). There were significant relationships between average preclinical performance and its subdivisions and other standard predictors of preclinical performance (MCAT score and science GPA). The authors, however, found this to be consistent with other similar studies.

CONCLUSION: The authors concluded that quantity of science-based undergraduate premedical education, either in its entirety or in subdivisions, did not materially affect the performance of the selected medical school students in their preclinical years of medical school.

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