Page 130 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

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Both the planned and the reac ve, opportunis c variant of self-regulated learning were dependent on four major in uencing factors: goals, experienced autonomy, opportuni es and expected results, see gure 1. When reviewing these factors using Sitzmann and Ely’s meta-analysis about SRL in voca onal se ngs it was reassuring to see that they also found that goal se ng and self-e cacy had the biggest e ect on the outcomes of SRL.19 Self-e cacy was not an apparent factor in the study reported in chapter 4. However, the studies in chapters 2, 3, and 5 did show how valuable self-e cacy and self-re ec on are for SRL. These might therefore be a h and sixth major factor, not clearly ar culated by students as such in chapter 4, but made vis- ible through studying rou nes, interac ons and iden fying pa erns in students’ SRL behavior.
Understanding the major factors in uencing clinical students’ SRL using other learning theories
Sitzmann and Ely did not report autonomy, opportuni es and expected results to be major in uencing factors on SRL.19 This might be a result from some unique features of a clinical context, but it might also be because self-regulated learning theories did not originate from voca onal learning se ngs but from many other contexts. Our studies therefore provide a valuable insight in the added complexity of SRL in clinical workplaces. However, using one main paradigm to view our results with may also have limited our understanding somewhat. Therefore, I will also discuss our ndings using other theories origina ng from other research paradigms to be er understand how SRL works in a clinical context.
Besides goals, which is also a notable part of all other SRL theories, we found in chapter 4 that autonomy, opportuni es and expected results are major in uences on SRL. This can be understood using literature about workplace a ordances,20,21 Self-Determina on Theory,22,23 and Achievement Goal Theory.24,25 Workplace a or- dances are used to describe the engagement opportuni es and invita onal quali es of the workplace.20 Workplace a ordances include readily available opportuni es for students, possibili es for a student to create opportuni es, and faculty teaching prac ces. Chen et al. studied how workplace a ordances and learner agency are both important to students’ learning opportuni es in a clinical context.26 Likewise, in chapter 4 we also found that opportuni es or workplace a ordances are important for clinical students’ SRL and that students in a clinical context also talked about cre- a ng workplace a ordances. This is similar to the learner agency described by Chen et al, and the ‘crea ng learning opportuni es’ approach described by Woods et al.9 Workplace a ordances are in uenced by students interac ng with ac vi es, arte-