The Correlation Between Cognitive Flexibility and Learning Strategies Adopted by Medical Students

Background and objective The term cognitive flexibility refers to the ability of the students to adapt to a challenging environment. This quality has been found to enhance creativity and skills for innovation among medical students who are expected to face a taxing environment in clinical settings. Medical students should be competent enough to address the problems on their own and work with autonomy. The practice of self-regulated learning (SRL) can be associated with cognitive flexibility. Hence, this study aimed to determine the correlation between learning strategies and cognitive flexibility. Our primary objective was to correlate the different learning strategies adopted and cognitive flexibility among medical students. Material and methods This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Sri Venkateshwaraa Medical College Hospital and Research Center, Ariyur, Pondicherry after obtaining institutional ethical committee approval. Students from the second year to the final year of the MBBS course who volunteered to participate in the study were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), consisting of 50 items in Part B, was employed to assess SRL. Cognitive flexibility was measured using the Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT) and Trail Making Test (TMT) Part A and Part B. Results The study included a total of 220 medical students. The mean age of the participants was 21.76 ± 1.77 years, and they had a healthy mean BMI of 21.06 ± 1.25 kg/m². There was no significant difference in terms of gender in the tested variables. Responses in Card "C" and Card "CW" of the Stroop test showed a significant positive correlation (p<0.001) with subscales of SRL strategies. In the TMT, the latency of Trail A showed a significant negative correlation (p<0.001) with all the subscale scores of the SRL strategies, and the latency of Trail B showed a negative correlation with rehearsal (p=0.03), organization (p=0.03), and effort regulation strategies (p=0.01) of SRL. Conclusion Implementing SRL techniques can ultimately help medical students to act more wisely and judiciously. Hence, we propose that cognitive flexibility among medical students can be enhanced by adopting SRL strategies.