The findings of the present study provide further support
for the higher validity of self-assessments of specific procedures
compared with self-assessments of general clinical
skills. These findings also underscore the need to consider the
different ways in which self-assessment accuracy can be
gauged by examining the bias index and the correlation coefficient.
As measured by the correlation coefficient, the selfassessments
of specific procedures were more accurate than
self-assessments of general clinical skills. This is encouraging
and consistent with the expectations of the study. Although
students could judge their own proficiency accurately in
relation to other students as measured by the correlation coefficient,
the negative values of the bias index for procedures
indicate that students underestimated their proficiency in
relation to the standards applied by the simulated patients.
The students overall tended to rate themselves lower than the
simulated patients did.