The attitudes, perceptions and experiences of medical school applicants following the closure of schools and cancellation of public examinations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional questionnaire study of UK medical applicants

  1. Katherine Woolf
  2. David Harrison
  3. Chris McManus

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Describe the experiences and views of medical applicants from diverse social backgrounds following the closure of schools and universities and the cancellation of public examinations in the UK due to COVID-19.

Design

Cross-sectional questionnaire study, part of the longitudinal UK Medical Applicant Cohort Study (UKMACS).

Setting

UK medical school admissions in 2020.

Participants

2887 participants completed an online questionnaire from 8 April to 22 April 2020. Eligible participants had registered to take the University Clinical Admissions Test in 2019 and agreed to be invited to take part, or had completed a previous UKMACS questionnaire, had been seriously considering applying to medicine in the UK for entry in 2020, and were UK residents.

Main outcome measures

Views on calculated grades, views on medical school admissions and teaching in 2020 and 2021, reported experiences of education during the national lockdown.

Results

Respondents were concerned about the calculated grades that replaced A-level examinations: female and Black Asian and Minority Ethnic applicants felt teachers would find it difficult to grade and rank students accurately, and applicants from non-selective state schools and living in deprived areas had concerns about the standardisation process. Calculated grades were generally not considered fair enough to use in selection, but were considered fair enough to use in combination with other measures including interview and aptitude test scores. Respondents from non-selective state (public) schools reported less access to educational resources compared with private/selective school pupils, less online teaching in real time and less time studying during lockdown.

Conclusions

The COVID-19 pandemic has and will have significant and long-term impacts on the selection, education and performance of our medical workforce. It is important that the views and experiences of applicants from diverse backgrounds are considered in decisions affecting their future and the future of the profession.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-044753
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.02.20116855: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethics and data protection: The study was approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee Chair on 8th April 2020 as an amendment to the ongoing UKMACS longitudinal questionnaire study (reference: 0511/014)
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis: Descriptive and univariate analyses were performed in SPSS v26.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.02.20116855v1 on medRxiv