How to encourage a lifelong learner? The complex relation between learning strategies and assessment in a medical curriculum

Figures & data

Table 1. Timeline of academic year, including division in quartiles, semester and summary of the tracks.

Quartile	Q1		Q2		Q3		Q4
Week	1–5	6–10	11–15	16–20	21–25	26–30	31–35	36–40
Semester	1				2
Track	Mechanisms of health and disease
	Projects
	Context, science and innovation
	Research (Biomedical sciences)/Practice and principles of medicine (Medicine)
	Professionalism
	Patient contact

Table 2. Timeline of academic year.

Quartile	Q1		Q2		Q3		Q4
Week	1–5	6–10	11–15	16–20	21–25	26–30	31–35	36–40
Semester	1				2
Longitudinal test	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Innovation project				X				X
MSLQ				X

Moments (X) that students take the longitudinal test, hand in the Innovation Project report and fill out the MSLQ.

Table 3. Descriptive data on gender and type of study in the study population.

Gender	N (percentage)	Study	N (percentage)
Female	169 (68.1%)	Medical Sciences	188 (75.8%)
Male	79 (31.9%)	Biomedical Sciences	60 (24.2%)

Figure 1. Boxplots of Radboudumc students’ scores on MSLQ learning strategy scales: Rehearsal (median = 4.25, IQR = 1.50); Elaboration (median = 4.83, IQR = 1.33); Organisation (median = 4.75, IQR = 1.50); Metacognitive self-regulation (median = 4.33, IQR = 0.92); Critical thinking (median = 3.60, IQR = 1.20).

Figure 2. Comparison of mean scores on MSLQ learning strategy scales between other studies and the Radboudumc 2016 first-year students in percentages. For Rehearsal, these scores are 4.37 and 4.40, respectively; for Elaboration 4.82 and 4.81; for Organisation 4.56 and 4.69; for Metacognitive self-regulation 4.44 and 4.33; and for Critical thinking 4.18 and 3.53.

Table 4. Step 1 of three multivariate regression analyses.

	Longitudinal test Semester 1		Longitudinal test Semester 2		Innovation project
	β coeff.	p value	β coeff.	p value	β coeff.	p value
Rehearsal	0.011	0.873	0.087	0.246	0.081	0.296
Organisation	−0.017	0.843	0.035	0.681	0.019	0.830
Elaboration	0.221	0.007*	0.147	0.076·	0.043	0.607
Metacognitive self-regulation	0.034	0.693	−0.019	0.827	0.018	0.843
Critical thinking	−0.077	0.299	−0.001	0.986	0.055	0.473

Grades of the students on the three tests are dependent variables and the five MSLQ learning strategy scales are independent variables. * significant under α=0.01

Table 5. Description of mean study results per group and t-tests.

Test	Male	Female	T-score	p value	Medicine	Bio-medical sciences	T-score	p value
Longitudinal test Semester 1	6.34	6.41	0.619	0.537	6.44	6.23	1.867	0.064
Longitudinal test Semester 2	6.27	6.28	0.064	0.949	6.37	5.98	2.539	0.013*
Innovation-project	6.74	7.02	1.656	0.100	7.14	6.35	4.908	<0.001**

* significant under α=0.05, ** significant under α=0.001

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.