Improving Education under Work-Hour Restrictions: Comparing Learning and Teaching Preferences of Faculty, Residents, and Students

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Megan C. Jack ; Sonya B. Kenkare ; Benjamin R. Saville ; Stephanie K. Beidler ; Sam C. Saba ; Alisha N. West ; Michael S. Hanemann ; John A. van Aalst
• 关键词：learning ; teaching ; resident education ; medical student education
• 刊名：Journal of Surgical Education
• 出版年：2010
• 出版时间：September-October 2010
• 年：2010
• 卷：67
• 期：5
• 页码：290-296
• 全文大小：481 K

文摘

Background

Faced with work-hour restrictions, educators are mandated to improve the efficiency of resident and medical student education. Few studies have assessed learning styles in medicine; none have compared teaching and learning preferences. Validated tools exist to study these deficiencies. Kolb describes 4 learning styles: converging (practical), diverging (imaginative), assimilating (inductive), and accommodating (active). Grasha Teaching Styles are categorized into “clusters”: 1 (teacher-centered, knowledge acquisition), 2 (teacher-centered, role modeling), 3 (student-centered, problem-solving), and 4 (student-centered, facilitative).

Study Design

Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (HayGroup, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Grasha-Riechmann's TSS were administered to surgical faculty (n = 61), residents (n = 96), and medical students (n = 183) at a tertiary academic medical center, after informed consent was obtained (IRB # 06-0612). Statistical analysis was performed using χ² and Fisher exact tests.

Results

Surgical residents preferred active learning (p = 0.053), whereas faculty preferred reflective learning (p < 0.01). As a result of a comparison of teaching preferences, although both groups preferred student-centered, facilitative teaching, faculty preferred teacher-centered, role-modeling instruction (p = 0.02) more often. Residents had no dominant teaching style more often than surgical faculty (p = 0.01). Medical students preferred converging learning (42 % ) and cluster 4 teaching (35 % ). Statistical significance was unchanged when corrected for gender, resident training level, and subspecialization.

Conclusions

Significant differences exist between faculty and residents in both learning and teaching preferences; this finding suggests inefficiency in resident education, as previous research suggests that learning styles parallel teaching styles. Absence of a predominant teaching style in residents suggests these individuals are learning to be teachers. The adaptation of faculty teaching methods to account for variations in resident learning styles may promote a better learning environment and more efficient faculty–resident interaction. Additional, multi-institutional studies using these tools are needed to elucidate these findings fully.