Selection for postgraduate training

Background: Selection for an educational programme requires meticulous planning and the adoption of sound educational principles to decide on how and what should be assessed. This article provides a step-wise guide for developing a selection process for postgraduate specialty training, based on the best practice in the literature. Method: The literature on selecting applicants for educational programmes was reviewed to categorise the selection methods according to their purpose, and their relative strengths and weaknesses. A step-wise guide that encapsulated the best practice for designing a selection process for postgraduate specialty training was then developed. Results: The steps of developing a selection process for postgraduate specialty training are: determining the competencies required for the training programme; selecting the competencies that can be assessed at selection; identifying content for selection; blueprinting; choice of selection tests; development of test material; piloting; and implementation and evaluation of the selection process. There are robust tests to assess applicants' knowledge at the lower two levels of Miller's pyramid. Scenario-based testing holds promise for assessing at 'shows-how' level. Assessing at 'does' level during selection is difficult, but not impossible. Discussion: There is no one test that can be used to select an applicant for a postgraduate training programme. Rather a battery of tests that assesses all the competencies, sampled according to a blueprint, should be used. The eight-step guide proposed in this article provides an educationally sound and defensible procedure to develop a selection process.