25 research outputs found
Visualising the invisible: a network approach to reveal the informal social side of student learning
World-wide, universities in health sciences have transformed their curriculum to include collaborative learning and facilitate the studentsā learning process. Interaction has been acknowledged to be the synergistic element in this learning context. However, students spend the majority of their time outside their classroom and interaction does not stop outside the classroom. Therefore we studied how informal social interaction influences student learning. Moreover, to explore what really matters in the students learning process, a model was tested how the generally known important constructsāprior performance, motivation and social integrationārelate to informal social interaction and student learning. 301 undergraduate medical students participated in this cross-sectional quantitative study. Informal social interaction was assessed using self-reported surveys following the network approach. Studentsā individual motivation, social integration and prior performance were assessed by the Academic Motivation Scale, the College Adaption Questionnaire and studentsā GPA respectively. A factual knowledge test represented studentā learning. All social networks were positively associated with student learning significantly: friendships (Ī² = 0.11), providing information to other students (Ī² = 0.16), receiving information from other students (Ī² = 0.25). Structural equation modelling revealed a model in which social networks increased student learning (r = 0.43), followed by prior performance (r = 0.31). In contrast to prior literature, studentsā academic motivation and social integration were not associated with studentsā learning. Studentsā informal social interaction is strongly associated with studentsā learning. These findings underline the need to change our focus from the formal context (classroom) to the informal context to optimize student learning and deliver modern medics