Factors that influence first year medical students’ choice of student selected component

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

Since 1993, the General Medical Council has required that Student Selected Components (SSCs) make up between one quarter and one third of medical school curricular content. Many SSCs have been evaluated individually, but little prior research exists about the influences on students’ choice of SSC. This is the first study to offer an insight into the factors influencing students’ choice of SSC, demonstrating relationships between the types of motivations students had for choosing SSCs and the type of SSC they subsequently took. Six main factors were identified as the reason why students chose their SSC: future achievements, prior information, internal motivation, personal recommendation, convenience or strategy and certainty This study would usefully be replicated in other medical schools and offers guidance for future qualitative and longitudinal research that would shed further light on the issues raised, and for staff seeking to guide students through the process.

Table 1.  Categories of SSC and students’ first choices of SSC

SSC category	Individual SSC titles	Number
Biosciences	Biomaterials	6
	Clinical problems in biochemistry	16
	Speech production	14
	Structure and function of medically important proteins	6
Medical humanities	Medical humanities: Sickness on the silver screen	7
	Medicine in the movies	1
	Poetry and prose in medicine	6
	Should euthanasia be legalised?	10
Medicine and society	Changing British Society	7
	Child psychological traumas	56
	History of Medicine	9
Medicine in the community	The Bromley-By-Bow Healthy Living Centre	3
	eHealth	0
	Sexpression – teach sexual education in schools	25
	SPECTRUM (charity)	1
Languages	Arabic Level 1	7
	French	12
	French – business and current affairs	7
	German	10
	Italian – beginners	6
	Japanese – beginners	6
	Spanish	24
Generic skills	European vomputer driving licence	10
	Research project	10
	Teaching and learning in medicine	8
	Missing	1
Total		268

Table 2.  Median responses to questions regarding motivations for SSC choice (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree)

Motivation	Median	Lower quartile	Upper quartile
It sounded enjoyable	4	4	5
It sounded interesting	4	4	5
It is useful for developing skills for practising as a doctor	4	3	4
It will look good on future job applications	4	3	4
It will help me with my other studies	3	3	4
I know about the topic already	3	2	4
It is related to my planned career choice	3	2	4
Written information about it influenced me	3	2	4
I had to choose something	3	2	4
The person/people running it influenced me	2	1	3
The oral presentation given influenced me	2	1	3
It sounded like the least work	2	1	3
Other students recommended it	2	1	3
Staff recommended it	2	1	3
Other people I know are doing it	2	1	3
The site it is held on was significant	1	1	3
My family influenced me	1	1	2
I did not chose it, it was allocated	1	1	2

Table 3.  Factor analysis loadings for reasons of SSC choice (values below 0.5 not shown)

	Future achievements	Prior information	Internal motivation	Personal recommendation	Convenience	Certainty
It will help me with my other studies	0.70
It will look good on future job applications	0.71
It is useful for developing skills for practising as a doctor	0.68
It is related to my planned career choice	0.59
The person/people running it influenced me		0.68
The oral presentation given influenced me		0.66
Written information about it influenced me		0.68
It sounded interesting			0.83
It sounded enjoyable			0.86
Other people I know are doing it				0.73
Staff recommended it				0.62
Other students recommended it				0.76
It sounded like the least work					0.60
My family influenced me					0.64
The site it is held on was significant					0.65
I had to choose something						−0.64
I know about the topic already						0.75
Variance explained by factor	22.4%	11.8%	7.8%	7.7%	6.9%	6.4%

Table 4.  Mean scores (standard deviations in parenthesis) on each motivational factor by chosen SSC type

Motivation factor	SSC type	N	Mean (SD)	95% CI	F (5, 261)	p
Future achievements	Bioscience	43	3.26 (0.7)	3.1–3.5	7.26	<0.001
	Medical humanities	24	2.99 (0.9)	2.6–3.4
	Medicine and society	72	3.01 (0.8)	2.8–3.2
	Medicine in the community	28	3.41 (0.5)	3.2–3.6
	Languages	72	3.00 (0.8)	2.8–3.1
	Generic skills	28	3.81 (0.6)	3.6–4.0
Prior information	Bioscience	43	2.72 (0.7)	2.5–2.9	9.15	<0.001
	Medical humanities	24	2.57 (0.6)	2.3–2.8
	Medicine and society	72	2.42 (0.7)	2.3–2.6
	Medicine in the community	28	2.29 (0.9)	1.9–2.7
	Languages	72	1.81 (0.9)	1.6–2.0
	Generic skills	28	2.39 (0.9)	2.0–2.6
Internal motivation	Bioscience	43	4.12 (0.5)	4.0–4.3	2.68	0.022
	Medical humanities	24	4.46 (0.5)	4.3–4.6
	Medicine and society	72	4.01 (0.9)	3.8–4.2
	Medicine in the community	28	4.43 (0.5)	4.2–4.6
	Languages	72	4.01 (0.9)	3.8–4.2
	Generic skills	28	4.04 (0.6)	3.8–4.3
Personal recommendation	Bioscience	43	2.17 (0.8)	1.9–2.4	3.61	0.004
	Medical humanities	24	1.86 (0.6)	1.6–2.1
	Medicine and society	72	1.91 (0.8)	1.7–2.1
	Medicine in the community	28	2.61 (1.1)	2.2–3.0
	Languages	72	2.01 (0.8)	1.8–2.2
	Generic skills	28	2.16 (0.8)	1.9–2.5
Convenience	Bioscience	43	1.90 (0.7)	1.7–2.1	3.40	0.005
	Medical humanities	24	2.11 (0.7)	1.8–2.4
	Medicine and society	72	1.92 (0.6)	1.8–2.1
	Medicine in the community	28	2.07 (0.7)	1.8–2.4
	Languages	72	1.69 (0.7)	1.5–1.8
	Generic skills	28	2.27 (1.0)	1.9–2.6
Certainty	Bioscience	43	2.74 (0.8)	2.5–3.0	4.53	0.001
	Medical humanities	24	3.46 (0.8)	3.1–3.8
	Medicine and society	72	2.96 (1.0)	2.7–3.2
	Medicine in the community	28	2.76 (1.1)	2.3–3.2
	Languages	72	3.33 (1.1)	3.1–3.6
	Generic skills	28	3.56 (0.8)	3.2–3.9

Table 5.  Correlations between personality trait scores (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness) and the six motivation factors

	Future achievements	Prior information	Internal motivation	Personal recommendation	Convenience	Certainty
N	r = 0.24	r = −0.09	r = −0.02	r = 0.01	r = 0.10	r = −0.00
	p = 0.69	p = 0.16	p = 0.75	p = 0.88	p = 0.11	p = 0.97
E	r = 0.08	r = −0.01	r = 0.12	r = 0.01	r = −0.08	r = 0.06
	p = 0.21	p = 0.87	p = 0.06	p = 0.93	p = 0.17	p = 0.31
O	r = 0.01	r = −0.03	r = 0.11	r = −0.12	r = −0.11	r = 0.03
	p = 0.92	p = 0.68	p = 0.07	p = 0.04	p = 0.07	p = 0.64
A	r = 0.00	r = −0.02	r = 0.11	r = −0.06	r = −0.21	r = 0.02
	p = 0.95	p = 0.76	p = 0.07	p = 0.36	p = 0.001	p = 0.76
C	r = 0.13	r = −0.01	r = 0.00	r = 0.02	r = −0.07	r = 0.13
	p = 0.03	p = 0.92	p = 0.95	p = 0.74	p = 0.27	p = 0.03

Note: Results in bold are significant at p < 0.05.