A 12-month development programme, the IP, effectively addressed generic learning skills deficiencies present in academically-at-risk students entering medical school.

No abstract

The introduction of PBL at the University of Cape Town has not had a deleterious effect on the performance of academically at-risk medical students. Interim analysis suggests that retention rates and academic performance in the PBL programme are better than those achieved in the extended traditional programme.

Although the retention of ADP students was lower than that of non-ADP students, the ADP enabled those who graduated to overcome the effects of under-resourced schooling and to perform well in final-year examinations.

ResearchThe contribution of discipline-independent cognitive skills to achieving success in higher education is increasingly acknowledged. [1][2][3][4][5][6] These skills are considered to be 'important for individuals both as learners in foundation education and training, and as future employees in changing and flexible work roles' . [6] Referred to as key skills, [7] generic graduate attributes [8] or generic skills that underpin lifelong learning, [9] they usually relate to six broad categories of skills: number-based skills; communication skills; information and communication technology skills; the skills required to improve one's own learning and performance; skills for problem-solving and skills for working with others. [4,10] Evidence is emerging that these underpinning generic learning skills may make an important contribution to academic performance in the first year at medical school. [11,12] Students experiencing academic difficulties in their first year at medical school report problems with information handling, problem solving, critical thinking and time management.[11] Academically at-risk medical students have been shown to have less practice, and confidence, in generic learning skills when compared with their peers on admission to university.[12] An academic support programme, purposefully designed to incorporate generic skills development, was found to close this 'skills gap' over a period of 12 months. These data suggest that generic skills proficiency may be a useful indicator of academic preparedness on entry to medical school. This may be particularly important in settings where widening participation in higher education is being pursued.A number of studies on the generic skills proficiency of medical school entrants have been based on self-reported data. [12][13][14] This may be considered such a significant limitation of the work as to render the findings uninformative to the broader academic community. Correlations between self-assessment of discipline-specific knowledge and/or skills and external measures of performance have been shown to be widely variable in many disciplines, including medicine, education, law, engineering, sports science, behavioural science, psychology, guidance counselling, dietetics, and the workplace. [15][16][17][18][19][20] The reasons why self-assessment of both domain-specific knowledge and discipline-specific skills is unreliable are well known; high performers tend to underestimate their ability, and poor performers lack both the required expertise and insight to recognise their lack of expertise, i.e. they don't know what they don't know. [17,[20][21][22] What is unknown, however, is whether self-assessment of generic learning skills, which are not discipline-specific, is subject to the same major limitations.In South Africa (SA), 17 of 26 public higher education institutions currently use the National Benchmark Tests (NBTs), alongside the National Senior Certificate and other high school-leaving examination results, to admit students who are likely to suc...