Microanalytic Assessment of Self-Regulated Learning During Clinical Reasoning Tasks: Recent Developments and Next...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Cognitive Psychology
• Clinical Reasoning Assessment

Background:

• Diagnostic errors and ineffective clinical practice are critical issues in medical education.
• Effective assessment data is crucial for helping medical educators guide trainees.
• Self-Regulated Learning-Microanalytic Assessment and Training (SRL-MAT) is an assessment-to-intervention framework.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review studies using self-regulated learning (SRL) microanalysis to assess trainees' cognitive and motivational processes.
• To explore how trainees regulate their thinking and actions during clinical reasoning tasks.
• To inform how medical educators can use SRL microanalytic data for interventions and feedback.

Main Methods:

• Review of several studies employing SRL microanalysis.
• Generation of data on trainees' strategic, regulatory, and motivational processes during clinical activities.
• Analysis of how trainees regulate thinking and actions in clinical reasoning tasks.

Main Results:

• Medical students often lack strategic thinking and action in clinical reasoning practice.
• Regulatory processes, such as planning, predict important medical education outcomes.
• Trainees' motivation, strategic thinking, and self-evaluations fluctuate during clinical skills practice and patient encounters.

Conclusions:

• Dynamically assessing trainees' SRL during clinical tasks is valuable.
• SRL microanalytic data can guide remedial practices and feedback for trainees.
• Further research is needed to connect assessment data to interventions in medical education.