Exploring factors affecting undergraduate medical students’ study strategies in the clinical years: a qualitative study

The aim of this study is to explore the effects of clinical supervision, and assessment characteristics on the study strategies used by undergraduate medical students during their clinical rotations. We conducted a qualitative phenomenological study at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, College of Medicine, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during the period from November 2007 to December 2008. We conducted semi-structured focus groups interviews with students and conducted individual interviews with teachers and students to explore students’ and clinical teachers’ perceptions and interpretations of factors influencing students’ study strategies. Data collection was continued until saturation was reached. We used Atlas-ti Computer Software (Version 5.2) to analyse the data, apply the obtained themes to the whole dataset and rearrange the data according to the themes and sub-themes. Analysis of data from interviews with twenty-eight students and thirteen clinical supervisors yielded three major themes relating to factors affecting students’ study strategies: “clinical supervisors and supervision”, “stress and anxiety” and “assessment”. The three themes we identified played a role in students’ adoption of different study strategies in the “community of clinical practice”. It appeared that teachers played a key role, particularly as assessors, clinical supervisors and as a source of stress to students

Keeping It Real: Making Space for Play in Early Education Policy and Practice

This chapter considers how the pedagogical framing of preschool activity as a preparation for a school, may be in conflict with an international consensus advocating allowing children greater control of some of their activities in preschool. The first sometimes promotes an early start to more formal learning, while the second proposes that personal responsibility and self-control and can lead to longer lasting benefits resulting from preschool experiences. A case study of changing policy and practice in Kazakhstan is used to illustrate the tensions between these two models of learning. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews with practitioners in the preschool environment were used to explore how national standards documents interact with underlying beliefs about the nature of learning in the formation of practice. The findings suggest that, as in other countries, the intention to increase child-led pedagogy may be inhibited by existing classroom-based expectations of children’s participation. The chapter considers how participatory research in play environments might help to increase awareness of the value of child-led play by focusing increased attention on how play supports learning