Page 28 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

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Method
Design
We used focus group sessions15 to study how rou nes of clinical departments in uenced medical students’ SRL from a construc vist paradigm, using grounded theory methodology.16 We assumed students would become more aware of the rou nes and their e ects on learning when discussing experiences with peers. We organized focus groups sessions to engage students in a lively discussion about their self-regulated learning in clinical environments. The mul disciplinary nature of our research team provided a variety of perspec ves to approach our research ques on. The rst author (JB) is a recently graduated MD and a PhD-student in health professions educa on. All other authors have PhD’s in health professions educa on and o ered insight from both under- and postgraduate medical educa on and in cogni ve as well as socio-cultural perspec ves on learning.
Se ng
We selected students from a Dutch medical school with entering cohorts of 350 students per year. The medical curriculum includes a preclinical phase (year 1-3) and a clinical phase (year 4-6). The clinical phase consists of rota onal clerkships ranging from 3 to 16 weeks in academic and teaching hospitals, as well as community se ngs. Throughout the clinical curriculum, independence and responsibili es gradually increase un l students are able to func on as residents a er gradua on.
Par cipants
Between December 2015 and June 2016, the rst author (JB) purposively approached students based on experience and current clerkship during educa onal mee ngs, asking for par cipa on in focus group sessions. Focus groups consisted of 4-9 par cipants. We ini ally organized both homogeneous and heterogeneous focus groups, but we found that students were be er able to discuss their experiences with others who had similar experiences. Otherwise, students were mainly sharing experiences with each other and not discussing the impact of these experiences on their learning. Therefore, a er one heterogeneous focus group we decided that the remainder of the focus groups would be homogenously sampled based on current clerkship loca on.
Data collec on
Focus groups were subsequently scheduled, whilst itera vely collec ng and analyzing data. All but one focus group were moderated by the second author (IS)