| چکیده انگلیسی مقاله |
Introduction: Undergraduate medical students are adult learners facing various assessments through examination during academic course, but the result is unsatisfactory. This study aimed at identifyingthe gaps in academics and finding out areas for improvement among the identified factors affecting the students’ performance.Methods: A questionnaire survey prospective, cross-sectional, observational, questionnaire- based study was conducted among the 3rd semester undergraduate students (N=215) in a Government Medical College of Eastern India by census method using predesigned, pretested, validated tool designed by Ron Fry. A total of 200 students participated in this study. A closed questionnaire containing 28 questions with dichotomous options was distributed. Data collected were tabulated in MS Excel spreadsheet and evaluated according to the proposed guidelines on seven factors: concentration, comprehension, test anxiety, organization, research aptitude, computer skill, and taking notes. Statistical significance of the data distribution among different groups was estimated using Chi-square tests in MS Excel 2010 software, and p Results: Among 200 participants (response rate=93%), 196 were (Male=142, Female=54) accepted; the respondats’ age range was 18-22 years. Of them, 48 students obtained honours marks (≥75% inany subject). 137 (69.9%) students had lacunae in any of the abovementioned domains, comprehension (97.9%) being the highest. The major determining factors were test anxiety along with note taking and concentration. The differences between the males and females regarding concentration (P=0.008) and note taking (P=0.009) were statistically significant. Test anxiety was the differentiating factor (P=0.013) between honours and non-honours candidates.Conclusion: Researches worldwide have identified extrinsic, intrinsic, personal, and miscellaneous factors affecting the students’ performances. This is a multifaceted issue which can be managed individually. Few of the most important determinants were dealt with in this study. To perform well, every student should understand what to learn, what to remember, and how to represent in examinations. This study will help the education authorities to guide the students and implement Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) based on Attitude, Ethics, and Communication (AETCOM) module in India. |
| کلیدواژههای انگلیسی مقاله |
Education, Medical, Undergraduate, Surveys and questionnaires, Anxiety, Attention, IntroductionLearning is an individual&,rsquo s way of perceiving, processing, and retaining new information which ends with successful recall. Its outcome depends on many factors like age, sex, intelligence quotient (IQ), culture and ethnicity, mentality and attitude, preparedness, associated psychological conditions, and genetic factors of the learner ( 1, ). During medical academic course, learning is assessed by examination which is an integral part of any educational system, but it is miserable and stressful as well as results make no one happy. Many factors, personal, familial, internal, or external, have negative roles in achieving a favourable result. It&,rsquo s important to identify the areas of lacunae as stress management or the coping strategy is not known by all ( 2, ). The researchers all over the world, through years, have been interested in finding such influencing factors and their interplay. Primarily, all university students are adult learners and their learning and performance are guided by seven principles of &,lsquo andragogy&,rsquo , providing safe and comfortable learning climate, getting involved in mutual planning, diagnosing one&,rsquo s own needs to trigger internal motivation, formulating one&,rsquo s own objectives to get more control on their learning, identifying and using the resources to achieve one&,rsquo s own objectives, supporting learning plans and self-evaluation to develop skills of critical reflection ( 3, , 4, ). Still, many areas of improvement remain unnoticed and are overlooked. Ron Fry mentioned arguably the most important seven issues in his work on students and learning psychology and incorporated them in a questionnaire designed by him. These include concentration, comprehension, text anxiety, organisation skill, learning ability, computer skill, and note taking in this study ( 5, ). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to be applied for the medical undergraduate students. The objectives of this study were to find the area for improvement among these identified factors affecting medical undergraduate students&,rsquo performance at the university level and identify the gaps in academics between different groups of undergraduate medical students.MethodsThe is a cross-sectional, prospective, observational questionnaire study done in a tertiary care government medical college in eastern India over a period of two months among all 3rd semester undergraduate medical students. Students of this year have been chosen as they have just attended for the first time in the University examination. Census method was used including all students of the mentioned batch. All the students who were present in class during the days of data collection, irrespective of their gender and age, were included in the study. Only the questionnaires filled out incompletely were excluded from this study. Predesigned, pretested, and validated questionnaire formulated by Ron Fry was used as the study tool ( 5, ). Before distribution of the questionnaire, proper informed consent for voluntary participation was obtained from each student. The questionnaires were then distributed after a lecture session in a single page printed format and then collected after the due time. The study was made anonymous by only receiving information about sex and age of the students, but no identifying information such as name was inquired. The collected data were tabulated in MS Excel 2010 spreadsheet and scored to find out the influencing factors. For each student, the responses were recorded according to the proposed guideline mentioned ( 5, ). The students were then divided into two groups according to sex and their secured distinction (Honours marks as defined for Indian medical Graduates, i.e. securing 75% or more marks in a particular subject) marks. The groups were compared using appropriate statistical tests using MS Excel 2010 software.Predesigned, pretested, and validated questionnaire formulated by Ron Fry is a closed questionnaire comprising of 28 descriptive statements with dichotomous options (Yes/No). Among the statements, numbers 2, 18, 5 are designated to assess the concentration issue numbers 1,8,15,16,24,26 for comprehension assessment test anxiety component is incorporated in numbers 3,14,22 numbers 4,6,10,11,13,21,23 stand for organisation skill of academic information learning issues are assigned in numbers 7,19,27 number s9 and 28 represent computer skill and numbers 12,17,20,25 Denote the ability of taking notes properly.Students were instructed to respond &,ldquo Yes&,rdquo or &,ldquo No&,rdquo against each of the statement. Among all 28 statements, if a student agrees by marking &,ldquo Yes&,rdquo in response to 10 or more statements, then he/she has some shortcomings in any of above-mentioned attributes identified. Among the seven mentioned factors identified by the tool, Lack in individual category was assessed by calculating &,ldquo YES&,rdquo response in each set of statements mentioned above.MS Excel 2010 software was used for tabulation, scoring, and statistically analysing the data. Frequencies of the shortcoming of different attributes were estimated first through percentage distribution and descriptive statistics. Chi-square statistics applied between the two groups of students as mentioned above and the statistical significance of male and female students were noted. An attempt was made to find out the determining factor of performance in terms of lacking in different sections identified among the Honours and Non-honours groups using Chi-square statistics. All the statistical analyses were carried out in MS Excel software 2010 version.ResultsOut of 215 students in total, 15 could not take part in this study as 9 students were absent in the class during the data collection days, and 6 of them were not willing to take part in the study. Thus, the response rate was 93% in the study. Four questionnaires were incomplete, so they were excluded. The total valid responses were 196 in number. Among them, 142 students were males (72.4%) and 54 females (27.6%). As to age distribution, the majority were in the age of 19 years (49.3%) followed by 20 years (37.2%), 21 years (13.8%), 18 years (4.6%). Among the study population (n=196), 171 respondents showed lack of concentration, whereas 192 students cannot comprehend properly. 165 out of all students were found to be suffering from test anxiety. Only 10 respondents had proper knowledge about organisation skill. 178 students had notable deficiency in learning. 125 students were deficient in computer skills. Only 94 students could take notes properly. Therefore, among the students, the maximum deficiency was seen in comprehension (98%) followed by organisational skill (95%) in the study and then l in learning (Figure 1,). Figure 1. Distribution of lacking among all students (n=196) Regarding the sex distribution of deficiency among males and females, we found comprehension and organisation skill to be almost comparable with each other (&,le 2% difference), but in other five attributes male students were more lagging behind (4% to 21% less) (Figure 2,) than their female batch mates. Figure 2. Distribution of lacking among male and female student groups (n=196) This difference between male and female respondents was found statistically significant (p&,lt 0.05) in concentration (p=0.008) and taking notes (p=0.009) (Table 1,). Attributes*,MaleFemale p value Lack No lack Lack No lack Concentration1281442120.008Comprehension13845310.900Test anxiety1212144100.522Organization13485220.583Learning131114770.258Computer skill954729250.070Taking notes826020340.009 *Seven factors, identified by Ron Fry questionnaire, which affects students&,rsquo performance. |