Self-Reported Influence of Internal and External Resources and Class Attendance on Medical Students' Pre-Clerkship...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Biomedical Sciences

Background:

• Medical students utilize diverse learning strategies.
• The impact of these strategies on performance, particularly between genders, is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if learning strategies and resource utilization differ between male and female medical students.
• To determine if these differences affect academic performance in a biomedical science curriculum.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of end-of-course survey data on resource use and attendance.
• Correlation of survey data with course performance metrics.
• Examination of video capture viewing time as a measure of engagement.

Main Results:

• Modest, significant differences observed in attendance, resource use, and video viewing time between genders.
• No significant differences in overall course grades were found between male and female students.
• Learning resource utilization and attendance patterns did not negatively impact academic outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Varied learning strategies and resource utilization are not detrimental to medical knowledge acquisition.
• Gender does not appear to be a significant factor in the relationship between study habits and academic performance.
• The findings support the effectiveness of diverse learning approaches in medical education.