Page 17 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

Because SRL is important to teach, assess and foster, we need to understand how SRL happens in a clinical context to op mally support the development of SRL skills. More speci cally, we need to know what SRL looks like when learning in an unpre- dictable, clinical context, what e ect various contextual factors have on SRL process- es in clinics, and how contextual factors and personal factors in uence each other resul ng in SRL. Pivotal in SRL is how ac vi es and task requirements in a context are interpreted by an individual, because this shapes all further decisions in SRL.27,28 This makes SRL more di cult in new contexts, in which learners do not know yet what ac vi es to engage in, and what is expected of them. 37 Subsequently learners do not know what could be e ec ve learning strategies and they may not have developed sophis cated strategies to take advantage of a context’s opportuni es and negate poten al drawbacks of a context.29 Therefore, this thesis focuses on improving our understanding of SRL by undergraduate medical students in clinical contexts. Under- graduate medical students have just transi oned into learning in clinical contexts and are therefore likely to need support in self-regula ng their learning.29 Therefore, the central research ques on in this thesis is:
How do medical students self-regulate their learning in a clinical context?
Research paradigm
The research paradigm one works in in uences study designs and outcomes. This thesis was the result of a construc vist stance, which means I envision that reality is subjec ve, context-speci c and that no ul mate truth exists. Each person constructs their own, o en shared, reality through the interac ons with others54. To fully ac- knowledge the complex nature of the subject under study, I have mainly used quali- ta ve methodologies to answer the research ques ons.
Role of the researcher
I believe reality is constructed between people. As the main researcher, I am likely to have had an in uence on most of the outcomes of the research in this thesis. It is therefore important to understand my role and previous experiences prior to con- struc ng this thesis, to put the results of this thesis in the right perspec ve.
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General introduc on Chapter 1