An investigation of the criterion problem for one group of medical specialists

Abstract

The sample consisted of 190 Utah physicians fully certified as specialists by an American Board. 80 scores relevant to the performance of these physicians were intercorrelated and factor analyzed using the principal components solution based on eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The 29 factors which had an eigenvalue greater than 1.00 were rotated by the varimax procedure and interpreted. The most important finding was the great criterion complexity for this group of medical specialists. This complexity suggests that one cannot adequately measure physician performance on the basis of a single score or a few scores. Instead, one must obtain a relatively large number of scores. Performance in poth premedical and medical education was independent of performance as a physician. (19 ref.) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)