Student objectives and learning experiences in a global health elective

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Global Health
• Qualitative Research

Background:

• International health electives are increasingly popular among medical students.
• Existing research inadequately addresses student objectives and their alignment with experiences in these electives.
• Assessing global health programs requires understanding if student-defined goals are met.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify medical students' objectives for global health electives.
• To evaluate the extent to which these objectives were met during the elective.
• To explore the relationship between learning objectives and actual experiences.

Main Methods:

• A pre-post questionnaire study involving 37 medical students across five cohorts.
• Utilized primarily open-ended questions and Likert-scale ratings for data collection.
• Employed qualitative thematic analysis (inductive coding) and quantitative descriptive statistics for evaluation.

Main Results:

• Five primary student objectives were identified: observing healthcare systems, improving clinical skills, enhancing language proficiency, cultural learning, and deepening infectious disease knowledge.
• All self-identified student objectives were achieved during the global health electives.
• An emergent theme of "self-reflection and personal growth" was observed, which was not an initial student objective.
• Quantitative data indicated a predominantly favorable overall elective experience for most students.
• Identified program challenges were also noted.

Conclusions:

• Global health electives enable medical students to meet their specific learning objectives.
• These experiences provide valuable, often unexpected, personal development opportunities.
• Student-defined learning objectives are crucial for effectively evaluating international health electives.