Healthcare Students’ Approaches to Studying in Association With Self-Efficacy and Mental Health: Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis

Abstract

There has been increasing concern about student mental health, self-efficacy, and their impact on approaches to learning. Little is known about how these three constructs relate and change over time. This is a second study exploring graduate occupational and physical therapy students’ approaches to studying, mental health factors, self-efficacy, and changes in relationships between these factors over time. We found that higher self-efficacy was related to higher deep approach ratings, while higher mental health ratings were related to higher strategic approach ratings and lower surface approach ratings. Self-efficacy and mental health show relatively consistent associations over time with student approaches to learning.

Keywords:

• Approaches to learning
• self-efficacy
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We would like to that the students for their participation at this stressful time in their lives.

Ethical approval

Informed consent to participate was obtained after institutional review board committee approval by the Institutional Review Board at Samuel Merritt University, Oakland, CA (IRB #19-022, June 2019).

Disclaimer

The view(s) expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Brooke Army Medical Center, the U.S. Army Medical Department, the U.S. Army Office of the Surgeon General, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, or the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data sets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.