Smoothing out transitions: how pedagogy influences medical students' achievement of self-regulated learning goals.

Full Abstract

Medical school is an academic and developmental path toward a professional life demanding self-regulation and self-education. Thus, many medical schools include in their goals for medical student education their graduates' ability to self-assess and self-regulate their education upon graduation and throughout their professional lives. This study explores links between medical students' use of self-regulated learning as it relates to motivation, autonomy, and control, and how these influenced their experiences in medical school. Subjects were medical students in two distinct medical school environments, "Problem-based learning" and "Traditional." PBL students described a rough transition into medical school, but once they felt comfortable with the autonomy and control PBL gave them, they embraced the independence and responsibility. They found themselves motivated to learning for learning's sake, and able to channel their motivation into effective transitions from the classrooms into the clerkships. Traditional students had a rougher transition from the classrooms to the clerkships. In the first two years they relied on faculty to direct and control learning, and they channeled their motivation toward achieving the highest grade. In the clerkships, they found faculty expected them to be more independent and self-directed than they felt prepared to be, and they struggled to assume responsibility for their learning. Self-regulated learning can help smooth out the transitions through medical school by preparing first and second year students for expectations in the third and fourth years, which can then maximize learning in the clinical milieu, and prepare medical students for a lifetime of learning.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: White, Casey B (CB);

Affiliation: University of Michigan Medical School, 1135 E. Catherine Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. bcwhite(-atsign-) umich.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice (Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Aug; vol 12 (issue 3) : pp 279-97

Dates: Created 2007/12/06; Completed 2008/02/12;

PMID: 16767503, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Choice Behavior
Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods
Educational Status
Goals
Humans
Internal-External Control
Interviews as Topic
Motivation

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.