Workplace learning: the bidirectional relationship between stress and self-regulated learning in undergraduates

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Health Professions Education
• Stress and Coping

Background:

• Self-regulated learning (SRL) and stress are crucial for academic achievement in health sciences.
• The dynamic interplay between SRL and stress in undergraduate health science students during workplace placements remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To longitudinally examine the reciprocal relationships between various SRL aspects and perceived stress among undergraduate health science students in workplace settings.
• To determine if prior week's stress influences current week's SRL and if prior week's SRL influences current week's stress.

Main Methods:

• A 15-week longitudinal diary study was conducted with 192 undergraduate health science students.
• Multilevel vector autoregressive models analyzed the weekly interplay between 21 SRL aspects (cognition, motivation, emotion, environment perception, metacognition) and stress.
• SRL aspects and stress were measured using validated scales and single-item measures.

Main Results:

• Significant cross-lagged effects were observed in both directions, though not simultaneously in any single model.
• Higher SRL aspects in one week were associated with lower stress in the subsequent week (7/21 paths significant, medium effect size).
• Higher stress in one week was associated with poorer SRL aspects in the subsequent week (10/21 paths significant, small effect size).

Conclusions:

• A predominantly negative, reciprocal relationship exists between stress and SRL aspects in health science students.
• Interventions targeting specific SRL aspects can potentially mitigate stress in clinical training.
• Findings support the importance of metacognitive strategies and motivation for managing stress and enhancing learning in health professions education.