Trial use of the Personal Qualities Assessment (PQA) in the entrance examination of a Japanese medical university: similarities to the results in western countries.

BACKGROUND: The Personal Qualities Assessment (PQA), developed by the University of Newcastle, Australia to assess the aptitude of future medical professionals, has been used in Western countries. PURPOSES: The objective was to investigate whether the PQA is appropriate for Japanese medical school applicants.
METHODS: Two of the PQA tests, Libertarian-Dual-Communitarian moral orientations (Mojac) and Narcissism, Aloofness, Confidence, and Empathy (NACE), were translated into Japanese, and administered at the Tokyo Women's Medical University entrance examinations from 2007 to 2009.
RESULTS: The distributions of the applicants' Mojac and NACE scores were close to the normal distribution, and the mean scores did not exhibit a large difference from those in Western countries. The only significant difference was that the mean score of the NACE test was slightly lower than the Western norm.
CONCLUSIONS: The translated PQA tests may be appropriate for use with Japanese applicants, though further research considering cultural differences is required.