Self -regulated learning and self -assessment in medical education: Is it all Latin to medical students?

Subsequent to formal education, physicians become responsible for maintaining and advancing their medical proficiency through self-regulated learning activities that can range from reading journals to participating in structured courses. Given the links between self-assessment of knowledge and skills, decisions about self-regulated learning throughout professional life, and medical proficiency, it can be argued that self-assessment accuracy has important implications for the quality of patient care. Medical educators have long advocated self-regulated, lifelong learning as a goal for medical education. However, paradoxically, the medical education literature reveals that most medical schools have not integrated formal programs into their curricula to promote or enhance these skills. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore self-regulated learning in the milieu of undergraduate medical education. In this study, students from two medical schools, one using a traditional approach to medical education and the other using a problem-based approach to medical education, were interviewed to investigate the variables that influence medical students' preparation for self-directed, lifelong learning, from the students' perspectives. Students from both schools reported similar motivations for attending medical school including a strong desire to work with people and to devote themselves to helping others. Both groups looked forward to becoming good physicians, and viewed their medical schools as excellent, competitive institutions. However, students in the problem-based curriculum were using specific strategies to guide and enhance their learning throughout medical school; their school also had in place a formal structure for students to practice self- (and peer) assessment. In contrast, students in the more traditional curriculum described limited strategies or techniques for regulating or controlling their learning, and they relied on faculty for guidance and assistance. This was a qualitative study designed to shed light on how students in two different curricula experience self-regulated learning and self-assessment in the context of medical school training. Findings might be useful to educators interested in understanding how and why some students engage in such activities and some don't, and to those who are interested in exploring ways to close the gap between medical curricula and goals for medical student education that include effective self-regulated learning.PhDEducationHealth Sciences, EducationHealth and Environmental SciencesHigher educationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125253/2/3186789.pd