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Koenig, J. A. & Mitchell, K. J. (1988). An Interim Report on the MCAT Essay Pilot Project. Journal of Medical Education, 63, 21-29.

PURPOSE: This paper reported the results from four pilot administrations of the MCAT essay in 1985 and 1986 to provide preliminary information on the nature of information provided by an essay and performance characteristics of various examinee groups.

METHOD: A sample of examinees was selected to represent the academic and demographic characteristics of the MCAT examinee population. The essays of these examinees were scored holistically on a 6-point scale. Analyses focused on (a) the performance characteristics of sample groups differentiated by gender, size of hometown, race/ethnicity, and dominant language; (b) the relationship between essay scores and academic/demographic characteristics; and (c) the reliability of one 45-minute versus 30-minute essays.

RESULTS: No differences were found for examinees grouped by gender and size of home community. However, differences were large and significant for racial/ethnicity and dominant language. The analysis of covariance results indicated that the amount of variation was largely due to differences in reading level differences. No relationship was found between the essay performance and the academic/demographic characteristics. The correlations between the essay and other MCAT science subtests were low, and somewhat higher for reading subset. Reliability estimates for two 30-minute essays were higher for one 45-minute essay; however, the 30-minute period yielded writing of poorer quality.

DISCUSSION: The authors concluded that the correlations between the essay and the other MCAT subtests shows that the writing portion is in fact assessing a skill that is not being assessed by another test.