The reliability of a hypothesis generation and testing task.

The purpose of this paper is to present results of initial experience with a clinical reasoning task which assesses two clearly defined aspects of clinical problem solving. Fourteen senior and 40 junior medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School participated in this study. They were given three clinical reasoning problems--the hypothesis generation and testing tasks (HG & T). As suggested by the name, two specifically defined components of clinical problem-solving, developing the initial hypotheses or differential and then testing hypotheses, were evaluated by these tasks. The findings of this study indicate that hypothesis generation and testing can be reliably evaluated with between seven and ten tasks. The results of this study suggest that reliable assessments of specific components of clinical problem-solving can be developed.