Comparing Tolerance of Ambiguity in Veterinary and Medical Students

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Veterinary Education
• Psychology

Background:

• Medical and veterinary educators aim to improve students' tolerance of ambiguity.
• Measuring and understanding ambiguity tolerance differences is crucial for curriculum design.
• No comparative studies exist on ambiguity tolerance between medical and veterinary students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the ambiguity tolerance of medical and veterinary students.
• To test the hypothesis that veterinary students possess higher ambiguity tolerance.
• To investigate the impact of different measurement scales on comparative findings.

Main Methods:

• Secondary analysis of questionnaire data from first- to fourth-year medical and veterinary students.
• Utilized the TAMSAD scale (medical students), TAVS scale (veterinary students), and a common 22-item scale.
• Calculated and compared tolerance of ambiguity scores between the two student groups.

Main Results:

• Medical students scored significantly higher than veterinary students on the TAMSAD and TAVS scales.
• No significant difference in ambiguity tolerance was found when using the 22 common scale items.
• The hypothesis that veterinary students have higher ambiguity tolerance was not supported.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest medical students may have slightly higher ambiguity tolerance than veterinary students.
• The choice of measurement scale significantly influences the comparative results.
• Highlights the importance of scale selection in research on ambiguity tolerance.