Factors determining student satisfaction with Fixed Resource Sessions (FRS) in the first two years of the medical curriculum

Abstract

Background: FRSs supplement our curriculum with labs, seminars and workshops and are provided to augment core learning, impart basic research skills and foster evidence based learning. Students judge these sessions routinely in web-based questionnaires. Despite the satisfactory evaluation of FRSs, there is a perception that students shy away from laboratory sessions, especially those involving open-ended experiments. So, we aimed to evaluate these sessions in order to investigate what constitutes a successful FRS and what guides students’ feedback.<p></p> Summary of work: Four semi-structured focus groups have produced a series of statements on different aspects of FRSs and rank them in order of importance. The entire 1st and 2nd years validated the findings by means of online questionnaires.<p></p> Summary of results: 51% of students from year 1 and 55% from year 2 have identified the relevance, guidance and length of sessions, enthusiasm of staff and the handouts as the main contributors to a positive feedback, while non-enthusiastic staff and badly informed demonstrators were judged to affect the learning outcomes negatively.<p></p> Conclusions: Based on students’ feedback, we have formed an overview of their opinion and produced a document for the teaching staff with suggestions which were discussed further in a setting of the staff focus group.<p></p> Take-home messages: We have produced a document for the teaching staff with suggestions which were discussed further in a setting of the staff focus group.<p></p&gt