Abstract
The Faculty of Medicine at Monash University made a decision to take personal qualities, as appraised by semi-structured interviews, into account alongside academic merit for selection of students from 1993 onwards. To develop competence in these techniques, the Faculty interviewed entrants, rather than applicants, in 1991 and 1992. Interviewing panels consist of three members—a member of the Faculty of Medicine, a member of the Association of Monash Medical Graduates Inc., and an outside person who is not involved in medicine. These qualities fall into four ‘fields’—quality of motivation, appropriateness of cognitive style, appropriateness of interpersonal style, and verbal communication skill. This paper describes the interview procedure, presents the results of questionnaires taken by the interviewers and the interviewees, and analyses the interview scores in relation to some demographic variables.