Date

10-13-2023

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Chair

Eric Lovik

Keywords

emergency medicine, gender, ethnicity, residency

Disciplines

Education | Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study is to examine if gender affects a medical student’s electronic Standardized Letters of Evaluation, or the characteristics of language used, in their application materials to an emergency medicine residency program through the Electronic Residency Application Service. This study is important as research is needed to determine if there is a difference in ratings or language used in emergency residency applications based on a medical student’s gender. The participants include 173 applicants from the 2022-2023 cycle that submitted material to a single emergency medicine residency program through the Electronic Residency Application Service. Instruments used include the electronic Standardized Letter of Evaluation and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2015. Convenience sampling was used with data analysis involving descriptive statistics, a two-way ANOVA, and an ANCOVA. No difference was found between the aggregate eSLOE ratings based on gender, ethnicity, or gender and ethnicity. There was also no difference in use of communal language based on gender of students when controlling for total word count. These results contradict prior literature, though it is difficult to determine the reasoning for such findings or if it may be due to one of the studies limitations. Future research should evaluate these findings as a potential temporal or regional trend, address limitations found within this study, and seek to identify reasons for such contradictory findings.

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