Abstract
BackgroundIn higher education, the focus has shifted from the acquisition of knowledge to learning objectives and skills. This means that, the majority of student learning time is spent independently working outside the classroom. Students take an active role in setting goals, deciding how to achieve them, and planning individual study time. Although extensive research has recognized the importance of curriculum and students’ characteristics in time devoted to self-study, it is still unclear to what extent these variables affect time to study. Due to the growing reliance on self-directed learning in medical education, and in an attempt to elucidate this issue, this research aims to evaluate self-study time during clinical training and assess whether this is more influenced by the student or the curriculum.MethodsA questionnaire was given to 1220 medical students (43.3% of the enrolled students). The students were asked to indicate the average number of study hours per week beyond the time allocated to classes for each clerkship (rotation) attended. Variation and generalizability of students’ self-study were estimated using linear mixed models.ResultsFindings showed that the intrinsic differences within students were a greater source of variation in self-study time than differences within clerkships (56.0% vs. 6.9%). If the amount of self-study dedicated to an individual clerkship is to be determined, at least 32 students are needed to achieve acceptable reliability. However, this data with two clerkships per student can used to retrospectively measure the self-study reported by students in clinical training.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that, both, curriculum and student characteristics influence self-study in undergraduate clinical training. Indeed, students’ characteristics play a significant role in time devoted to study. Further research should be undertaken to investigate students’ characteristics that may predict self-study during undergraduate medical training.
Highlights
In higher education, the focus has shifted from the acquisition of knowledge to learning objectives and skills
Workload is measured as the number of contact hours plus the time spent on self-study [1]
We considered if self-study hours allocated in our curriculum and academic year explained variability of our main exposures
Summary
The focus has shifted from the acquisition of knowledge to learning objectives and skills. This means that, the majority of student learning time is spent independently working outside the classroom. There is typically no attempt to enforce the hours of self-study, and it is assumed that these will take place in the program. Within this framework, monitoring student’s self-study and emphasizing its importance is key to the learning process
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