Does academic performance or personal growth share a stronger association with learning environment perception?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology

Background:

• Supportive learning environments are crucial for medical student success.
• Understanding factors influencing student perception of the learning environment is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the strength of association between learning environment perception and academic performance versus personal growth in medical students.
• To investigate the predictive power of personal growth and academic performance on learning environment perception.

Main Methods:

• A survey of second and third-year medical students at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine was conducted between 2012 and 2014.
• Students completed a learning environment survey and a personal growth scale.
• Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to compare the variance in learning environment scores explained by personal growth versus academic performance.

Main Results:

• Personal growth accounted for a larger proportion of variance in learning environment perception than academic performance in both second year (9%) and third year (28%) medical students.
• Academic performance showed only a small shared variance with learning environment perception.
• The association between learning environment scores and personal growth was small in the second year but substantial in the third year.

Conclusions:

• Personal growth is a stronger correlate of learning environment perception than academic performance in medical students.
• Future research should explore interventions to enhance personal growth to potentially improve medical students' learning environment perception.
• Findings suggest that focusing on personal development may be key to fostering positive educational experiences in medical training.