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Student selected components: do students learn what teachers think they teach?
Michael J Murphy1, Rohini De A Seneviratne, Sean P McAleer
1Division of Pathology & Neuroscience, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. m.j.murphy@dundee.ac.uk
Medical Teacher
|January 2, 2009
Summary
Student and supervisor perceptions of learning outcomes in medical education's student selected components (SSCs) often differ significantly. This highlights a gap between what is taught and what students actually learn, impacting curriculum effectiveness.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Curriculum Development
- Learning Outcomes Assessment
Background:
- Discrepancies between teaching and learning are recognized in undergraduate medical curricula.
- Student Selected Components (SSCs) exhibit significant variation in educational content, a previously unstudied area.
- Understanding these variations is crucial for effective medical training.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare student and supervisor perceptions of learning outcomes within SSCs.
- To identify and analyze discrepancies between perceived teaching and actual student learning.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of SSCs in achieving intended educational goals.
Main Methods:
- Supervisors (n=69) and students (n=644) completed identical learning outcome templates.
- A 'traffic-light' system visually represented agreement/disagreement between student and supervisor perceptions for individual SSCs.
- Chi-squared statistics were employed to compare perception differences across the entire SSC program.
Main Results:
- The 'traffic-light' system effectively flagged SSCs with significant perception discrepancies.
- More students than supervisors identified 'practical procedures' as a key outcome (41.8% vs 27.5%).
- Supervisors more frequently emphasized 'communication skills' (97.1% vs 82.1%) and 'information retrieval' (100% vs 93.7%) as outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Significant disagreements exist regarding the learning outcomes addressed by SSCs.
- These findings suggest a potential gap between intended teaching and student learning in medical education.
- A dual approach of individual and global comparisons provides a robust method for addressing these curriculum discrepancies.
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