Page 84 - Medical students’ self-regulated learning in clinical contexts

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Students described goals to be an important in uencing factor because they serve a mo va onal func on and were o en a star ng point for a speci c goal to work towards. This is consistent with earlier research on self-regulated learning in classroom se ngs, sta ng that goals can func on as regulatory agents for self- regulated learning.18 Furthermore, goals can direct students’ a en on on speci c aspects of the learning process or outcomes.16 The goals we found are similar to those described in the theory on mastery, and performance goals, which also relates to the opportunity to make errors as in uencing factor on self-regulated learning in a classroom se ng.19,37,38
The opportuni es that students see, create or are given, and the autonomy that students experience also have an e ect on self-regulated learning in a clinical context. It can be understood that if students have some feeling of autonomy, this helps them to take control and self-regulate their learning, for instance by more ac vely crea ng learning opportuni es. These contextual a ributes appear to be quite unique for a clinical context because issues regarding pa ent safety and produc vity are also important and may limit the amount of autonomy students receive and opportuni es they are given.
Lastly, students’ self-regulated learning was in uenced by the expected outcomes of an ac vity. Many external goals set by the clinical curriculum led to li le e ort working on those goals because students did not see the point and how they would bene t from conduc ng such an ac vity. This resonates well with earlier ndings that if students do not see value in a learning task they are likely to spend li le me on se ng goals and planning strategies to accomplish these tasks.39,40
We noted large individual di erences in students’ self-regulated learning, making it a process that is highly speci c for each person. For example some students ac vely set learning goals for themselves, where others seemed to rely on a more opportunis c approach. Relying on opportunis c learning especially happened at the start of clerkships, as expecta ons o en became more clear once students grew accustomed to their workplace. Students explained they used opportunis c learning strategies because they did not know what was expected from them and what they could expect from the clerkship. This nding resonates well with the call for more longitudinal integrated clerkships.41
A recent review has shown that, even though students are expected to self-regulate their learning, many college students are insu ciently capable of monitoring their