Page 38 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

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clinical departments the e ect rou nes had on the possibility to form rela onships with others may have been di erent from other clerkships. One can imagine that professional rela onships are easier to be formed and maintained in a department with only a handful of sta members and a small number of students enrolled in a clerkship.
By not using a very strict de ni on of rou nes, students were allowed to talk about all things they regarded to be rou nes that in uenced their SRL. Students did not only discuss behavioral rou nes of members of a clinical department, but also took departmental characteris cs such as pa ent mix into considera on. This provided us with some extra insight in how students perceived pa ent characteris cs to in uence their SRL. However, it also provided us with the insight that students mostly talked about their SRL thinking about goals regarding diagnosing and trea ng a pa ent. Li le students men oned goals other than those in the domain of medical expert. We are unsure whether SRL aiming for goals in other domains is in uenced similarly.
At some moments, students had di culty explaining how and when rou nes a ected their SRL and why they believed some rou nes happened the way they did. We believe this is caused by students’ rela vely short stay on single departments. A similar study with students enrolled in longitudinal integrated clerkships might have provided more in-depth details regarding department rou nes and how it a ects SRL.
Implica ons for prac ce and future research
Our ndings give us some leads as to what rou nes of clinical departments support medical students’ SRL. First of all, it is important that rou nes support professional rela onships between students and sta members. This is facilitated when sta members know which students are enrolled in their clerkship, involve students in informal ac vi es, ac vely involve students in daily clinical prac ce, and have frequent interac ons with students. This can be encouraged using many di erent rou nes, for instance by having lunch with students, ac vely asking for student opinions during mee ngs, pairing students and a supervisor for a longer period of me, and by having frequent talks with students about their clerkship learning goals and progress.
Secondly, students need to perceive that e ort is invested in their learning. Clinical departments can facilitate this feeling through catering for learning experiences that meet an individual student’s objec ve and by appropriately ques oning students in a safe environment. This can also be encouraged using many di erent rou nes,