Document Detail


Influences on medical students' self-regulated learning after test completion.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  22324532     Owner:  NLM     Status:  In-Data-Review    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Medical Education 2012: 46: 326-335 Context  The inadequacy of self-assessment as a mechanism to guide performance improvements has placed greater emphasis on the value of testing as a pedagogic strategy. The mechanism whereby testing influences learning is incompletely understood. This study was performed to examine which aspects of a testing experience most influence self-regulated learning behaviour among medical students. Methods  Sixty-seven medical students participated in a computer-based, multiple-choice test. Initially, participants were instructed to attempt only items for which they felt confident of their response. They were then asked to indicate their best responses to deferred items. Students were then given an opportunity to review the items, with correct responses indicated. Accuracy, the attempt/defer decision and the time taken to reach this decision were recorded, along with participants' ratings of their confidence in each response and the time spent reviewing each item on completion of the test. Results  Students correctly answered a larger proportion of attempted items than deferred items (71% versus 40%; p < 0.001), and indicated a higher mean confidence in responses to items they answered correctly compared with items they answered incorrectly (70 versus 46; p < 0.001). They spent longer reviewing items they had answered incorrectly than correctly (8.3 versus 4.0 seconds; p < 0.001), and paid particular attention to items for which the attempt/defer decision and accuracy were discordant (p < 0.01). The amount of time required to make a decision on whether or not to answer a test question was also related to reviewing time. Conclusions  Medical students showed a robust ability to accurately and consciously self-monitor their likelihood of success on multiple-choice test items. By focusing their subsequent self-regulated learning on areas in which performance and self-monitoring judgements were misaligned, participants reinforced the importance of providing learners with opportunities to discover the limits of their ability and further elucidated the mechanism through which test-enhanced learning might be derived.
Authors:
Sacha Agrawal; Geoffrey R Norman; Kevin W Eva
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Medical education     Volume:  46     ISSN:  1365-2923     ISO Abbreviation:  Med Educ     Publication Date:  2012 Mar 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2012-02-13     Completed Date:  -     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7605655     Medline TA:  Med Educ     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  326-35     Citation Subset:  IM    
Copyright Information:
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012.
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Centre for Health Education Scholarship, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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