Introduction The effectiveness of medical school efforts in addressing suboptimal student wellbeing rests, in part, on how students perceive their learning environment. The study aim was to determine whether students' sport background was a contributing factor in students' perceptions of the medical program as supportive of their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We also examined the relationship between sport background and students' leisure-time exercise in medical school. Methods Using an online questionnaire, quantitative data were collected from students enrolled in the 4-year medical program at a large Canadian university. Two hundred (n = 200) students had complete responses on the measures used in the study. Analysis of variance and correlational analysis were used to examine the relationships between students' sport background, their perceptions of the learning environment, and leisure-time exercise in medical school. Results Compared with students with no sport background, students with a team sport background perceived their need for relatedness to be satisfied to a greater degree in the medical program. Students who pursued sports at higher levels of involvement (competitively) perceived the medical program as more autonomy-supportive than students who pursued sports at lower levels of involvement (recreationally). Irrespective of their sport background, students'

Introduction: In medical practice, a mastery mindset is important for engaging in lifelong learning. The objective of this study was to examine the association between family medicine residents’ scores on mindset measures and their performance on in-training examinations (ITE). Methods: This was a secondary data analysis of a cohort of family medicine residents. Following ethics approval, residents’ ITE scores from each of the 2 years of residency were linked with residents’ responses to a mindsets survey that they had taken at the midpoint of residency training. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between residents’ mindset scores and their ITE scores. Of 85 residents, 46 (54%) had complete data for the three data collection points. Results: Residents’ ITE scores in year 1 were most predictive of their ITE scores in year 2 (β=0.72; P<.001). Mastery mindset scores were negatively associated with residents’ performance on the ITE in year 2 (β=-0.29; P=.004). Conclusion: While the observed negative relationship between residents’ mastery mindset scores and their ITE performance may be disconcerting, it is not surprising. In clinical settings, residents are individually coached by preceptors and provided with specific, actionable feedback to support their learning. With respect to formative assessments, residents likely require explicit training on how to use their assessment results (ITE scores) to support their self-directed learning. This finding has practical implications for residency programs in using ITEs as formative assessments.