Investigation of clinical students’ independent learning and cultivation of self-management ability

Abstract

Objective To understand the independent learning situation of clinical students, find out the problems existing in the training process of medical students, explore education and teaching methods, and enhance students’ self-management ability. Methods Questionnaire which was self-designed were utilized to collect data from 141 clinical students in Peking University First Hospital, contains the general situation of learning, self-management, teaching methods and formative evaluation, cooperated with some individual interviews.Data were analyzed by rank sum test. Results 78.7%(111/141) of the students were interested in medicine. Students of secondary clinical disciplines were more tired (Z=-4.450, P<0.001); 39.0%(55/141) of the students thought their self-management were good; Students of secondary clinical disciplines were more active than the clinical undergraduates in arriving early(Z=-5.296, P<0.001), leaving late (Z=-6.024, P<0.001), advance preparation (Z=-4.975, P<0.001), to study room (Z=-2.895, P=0.004), asking history or checking body (Z=-4.48, P<0.001), asking teachers for help (Z=-2.98, P=0.003) , asking senior classmate for help (Z=-3.172, P=0.002) and learning by self-study time (Z=-3.266, P=0.001). 63.1%(89/141) of the students thought that formative evaluation was helpful for improving self-management, especially the undergraduates(Z=-3.286, P=0.001). Conclusions It can enhance the clinical students’ self-management ability and learning enthusiasm by guiding them to participate in clinical teaching activities, innovating teaching methods and keep improving formative evaluation, especially the undergraduates. Key words: Eight-year medical program; Medical student; Autonomous learning; Self-management; Discussion