Abstract
BackgroundIn recent years, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an essential field of medical education. Bedside ultrasound has become a necessary skill for clinical physicians. Previous studies have already discussed the importance of advancements in ultrasound education. However, learning motivations for ultrasound education have seldom been analyzed in the literature. For medical students, learning ultrasound could have a relevance for their future career. The Existence, Relatedness and Growth (ERG) theory extended Maslow’s hierarchy of needs through these three concepts. This theory has been widely used in the workplace to analyze employee job performance but has not yet been applied in medical education. In this study ERG theory was applied to analyze pre-clinical medical students’ learning motivation toward ultrasound education.MethodThis mixed method study used online questionnaires consisting of open-ended questions as a data collection tool, and based on these results, both qualitative and quantitative analysis were conducted. Participants answered a series of neutral and open-ended questions regarding their motivations to learn ultrasonography. After data collection, a three-step analysis was conducted based on the grounded theory approach. Finally, the results of the thematic coding were used to complete additional quantitative analysis.ResultsThe study involved 140 pre-clinical medical students, and their responses fell into 13 specific categories. The analysis demonstrated that students’ motivations toward ultrasound education were unbalanced across the three ERG domains (F = 41.257, p < .001). Pairwise comparisons showed that students mentioned existence motivation (MD = 39.3%; p < .001) and growth motivation (MD = 40.7%; p < .001) more frequently than relatedness motivation. However, there was no significant difference between existence motivation and growth motivation (MD = − 1.4%; p = .830).ConclusionThe results revealed that students placed a high value on existence and growth needs rather than relatedness based on the survey. In addition, the findings suggest that ERG theory can be a useful tool to conduct medical education motivation analysis.
Highlights
In recent years, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an essential field of medical education
The study involved 140 pre-clinical medical students, and their responses fell into 13 specific categories
The analysis demonstrated that students’ motivations toward ultrasound education were unbalanced across the three ERG domains (F = 41.257, p < .001)
Summary
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an essential field of medical education. The Existence, Relatedness and Growth (ERG) theory extended Maslow’s hierarchy of needs through these three concepts This theory has been widely used in the workplace to analyze employee job performance but has not yet been applied in medical education. In this study ERG theory was applied to analyze pre-clinical medical students’ learning motivation toward ultrasound education. POCUS helps clinicians to make diagnostic decisions based on the interpretation imaging obtained at the bedside. Previous literature has already discussed the importance of advancements in ultrasound education for medical students [2, 3]. These studies mainly focus on learning outcomes obtained through the design of different learning courses [2]. Many other factors that affect educational outcomes, including learning motivation, but this factor is rarely addressed in the literature
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