Page 37 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

Therefore, from an SRL and mo va onal point of view, smaller numbers of students learning in a clinical department, and allowing for longer las ng clerkships with collabora on between student and supervisor are very important to be er support students’ SRL in a clinical context.
Secondly, students also need to sense some form of reciprocity in their rela onship with sta members. Students get mo vated by mo vated, engaged teachers, which are required to maximize students’ engagement in SRL and to help create the best context for students to learn in. Likewise, teachers get mo vated by engaged students who invest e ort into their learning. Besides mo va on, this reciprocity in e ort may also facilitate teacher work engagement, which in turn is likely to improve teacher performance and result in an upwards spiral.21 Other research already showed how student and teacher mo va on, engagement and e ort are interrelated.22–24 Our ndings add to the understanding how rou nes of clinical departments facilitate this process, and how educators might address certain rou nes to achieve such an upwards spiral, resul ng in high teacher work engagement and students engaging in SRL.
Our ndings align well with the developmental space students require for learning, as described by Van der Zwet et al.25 Developmental space also originates from an interac on between student and context, similar to self-regulated learning,6 and consists of contextual space and socio-emo onal space. Contextual space is determined by supervision, observa on, feedback and pa ent mix, as well as other material, organiza onal, and educa onal elements.25 Our ndings illuminate how rou nes of departments can provide students with the contextual space required for SRL. Contextual space for SRL is most likely to be created by having students feel e ort is invested in their learning. Socio-emo onal space originates from interac ons with a social environment, consis ng of supervisors, other team members and pa ents.25 Our ndings illustrate how socio-emo onal space is mainly in uenced by the opportunity to form rela onships between students and sta members, which requires me, e ort and legi macy.
Strengths and limita ons
Our ndings result from focus groups with students from a single ins tu on, which included mul ple teaching hospitals. Therefore, care should be taken when generalizing these results to other se ngs, especially if these se ngs have naturally di erent rela onships between students and sta . Using focus groups limited us to only include par cipants from clerkships in which many students were simultaneously enrolled: internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, surgery, and psychiatry. In these
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Rou nes of clinical departments that in uence students’ self-regulated learning Chapter 2