2012/01/01 by Götz Fabry, Fabry, Götz, Marianne Giesler +1
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #610 Medical sciences #Evaluation of Teaching Practices #Germany #Innovations in Medical Education #Learning Styles and Cognitive Differences #Medicine #learning #learning strategies #medical education #undergraduate
paper · doi:10.3205/zma000826
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
BACKGROUND: Adequate use of different learning strategies is one of the most important prerequisites of academic success. The actual use of learning strategies is the result of an interaction between individual and situational variables. Against this background we conducted a longitudinal study with first year medical students to investigate whether individuals show different patterns in their use of learning strategies and whether these patterns change during the first academic year. METHODS: Medical students (N=175, 58% female) were surveyed three times in their first academic year regarding their use of learning strategies. A hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward) was conducted in order to identify groups of students with different patterns of learning strategies. RESULTS: We identified four different patterns in approaches to learning among novice medical students ("easy-going", "flexible", "problematic" and "hardworking" learners). Compared to their peers, the problematic learners had the worst final school grades. In addition changes in the use of learning strategies were identified, most of them occurred during the first term. CONCLUSION: Students start their academic studies with different patterns of learning strategies; the characteristics of these patterns change during the first academic year. Further research is necessary to better understand how individual and situational variables determine students' learning.