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      Graduate entry and undergraduate medical students’ study approaches, stress levels and ways of coping: a five year longitudinal study

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      BMC Medical Education
      BioMed Central

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          Abstract

          Background

          Incorporating graduate students into undergraduate medical degree programs is a commonly accepted practice. However, it has only recently been recognized that these two types of students cope with their studies in various ways. The aim was to compare the learning approaches, stress levels and ways of coping of undergraduate (UG) and graduate entry medical students (GEMP) throughout their medical course.

          Methods

          From 2007–2011 each of the five year cohorts of undergraduate and GEMP students completed four components of the study. The components included demographics, The Biggs’ R-SPQ-2 F questionnaire which determines students’ approaches to learning, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) used to rate students perceived stress during the past four weeks, and the Ways of Coping (WOC) questionnaire used to assess students’ methods of coping with everyday problems.

          Results

          There was a consistent difference between UG and GEMP students approaches to learning over the five years. GEMP students preferred a deep approach while the UG students preferred a superficial approach to learning. This difference became more obvious in the clinical years. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in stress levels. There were consistent differences in the ways the two groups coped with stress.

          Conclusions

          There were significant differences in approaches to learning and ways of coping with stress between the UG and the GEMP students. These need to be considered when introducing curriculum change, in particular, redesigning an UG program for post graduate delivery.

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          Most cited references42

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          If it changes it must be a process: study of emotion and coping during three stages of a college examination.

          This natural experiment provides substantial evidence for the following major themes, which are based on a cognitively oriented, process-centered theory of stress and coping: First, a stressful encounter should be viewed as a dynamic, unfolding process, not as a static, unitary event. Emotion and coping (including the use of social support) were assessed at three stages of a midterm examination: the anticipation stage before the exam, the waiting stage after the exam and before grades were announced, and after grades were posted. For the group as a whole there were significant changes in emotions and coping (including the use of social support) across the three stages. Second, people experience seemingly contradictory emotions and states of mind during every stage of an encounter. In this study, for example, subjects experienced both threat emotions and challege emotions. The complexity of emotions and their cognitive appraisals reflects ambiguity regarding the multifaceted nature of the exam and its meanings, especially during the anticipation stage. Third, coping is a complex process. On the average, subjects used combinations of most of the available forms of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping at every stage of the exam. Different forms of coping were salient during the anticipation and waiting stages. Problem-focused coping and emphasizing the positive were more prominent during the former, and distancing more prominent during the latter. Finally, despite normatively shared emotional reactions at each stage, substantial individual differences remained. Using selected appraisal and coping variables, and taking grade point averages (GPA) into account, approximately 48% of the variances in threat and challenge emotions at the anticipation stage was explained. Controlling for variance due to the grade received, appraisal, and coping variables accounted for 28% of the variance in positive and negative emotions at the outcome stage. Including grade, 57% of the variance in positive emotions at outcome and 61% of the negative emotions at outcome were explained.
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            Depressive symptoms in medical students and residents: a multischool study.

            This multisite, anonymous study assessed depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation in medical trainees (medical students and residents). In 2003-2004, the authors surveyed medical trainees at six sites. Surveys included content from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale (CES-D) and the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) (measures for depression), as well as demographic content. Rates of reported major and minor depression and of suicidal ideation were calculated. Responses were compared by level of training, gender, and ethnicity. More than 2,000 medical students and residents responded, for an overall response rate of 89%. Based on categorical levels from the CES-D, 12% had probable major depression and 9.2% had probable mild/moderate depression. There were significant differences in depression by trainee level, with a higher rate among medical students; and gender, with higher rates among women (chi2 = 10.42, df = 2, and P = .005 and chi2 = 22.1, df = 2, and P < .001, respectively). Nearly 6% reported suicidal ideation, with differences by trainee level, with a higher rate among medical students; and ethnicity, with the highest rate among black/African American respondents and the lowest among Caucasian respondents (chi2 = 5.19, df = 1, and P = .023 and chi2 = 10.42, df = 3, and P = .015, respectively). Depression remains a significant issue for medical trainees. This study highlights the importance of ongoing mental health assessment, treatment, and education for medical trainees.
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              Improving the quality of student learning: the influence of learning context and student approaches to learning on learning outcomes

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                sally.sandover@uwa.edu.au
                diana.jonas-dwyer@uwa.edu.au
                timothy.marr@health.wa.gov.au
                Journal
                BMC Med Educ
                BMC Med Educ
                BMC Medical Education
                BioMed Central (London )
                1472-6920
                24 January 2015
                24 January 2015
                2015
                : 15
                : 1
                : 5
                Affiliations
                [ ]The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA Australia
                [ ]Fremantle Hospital, Alma Street, Fremantle, WA Australia
                Article
                284
                10.1186/s12909-015-0284-7
                4310038
                25616440
                773f30d0-63e7-457c-ad97-544772b26960
                © Sandover et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 21 October 2013
                : 5 January 2015
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2015

                Education
                Education

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