Achievement goals of medical students and physicians

Abstract

In achievement settings, the types of motivation individuals develop are crucial to their success and to the ways in which they respond to challenges. Considering the competitive nature of medical education and the high stakes of medical practice, it is important to know what types of motivation (conceptualized here as achievement goals) medical students and physicians adopt and how these may differ depending on the nuances of their achievement settings. This is a cross-sectional survey study of medical students (N=200) and practicing physicians (N=202). The online questionnaire included measures of achievement goals (performance approach, performance avoidance, mastery approach, mastery avoidance) and background characteristics. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine differences in achievement goals of medical students and physicians. Education/career stage, medical specialty, and practice type were used as factors in the analyses. Despite the differences in achievement settings, striking similarities in the achievement goals among medical students and physicians were observed in this study. Both students and physicians were most likely to endorse mastery approach goals (the most adaptive type of motivation) and least likely to endorse performance avoidance goals (the least adaptive type of motivation). Significant differences were observed in mastery approach goals of students and physicians, depending on education/career stage. With respect to medical specialty, although distinct patterns in achievement goals emerged in the student and physician data, the observed differences were not statistically significant. Academic physicians had higher levels of performance goals than community-based physicians. Medical students and physicians thus self-reported themselves as highly mastery approach-oriented; nevertheless, our findings suggest that these goals are more prone to fluctuations than other achievement goals, depending on the stage of one's education/career. The results largely show that medical students and physicians endorse achievement goals that are beneficial for lifelong learning, well-being, and success.

Association of Physicians’ Self-Compassion with Work Engagement, Exhaustion, and Professional Life Satisfaction

“…This study is part of a larger research project investigating personal and contextual factors in the learning and wellbeing of medical students and practicing physicians. The findings on student and physician motivation and lifelong learning have been reported elsewhere [16,17,18,19]. In the present study, we examined the association of physicians’ self-compassion with work engagement, exhaustion, and professional life satisfaction.…”

Relationship between metacognitive awareness and motivation to learn in medical students

“…It is important to acknowledge institutional and cultural specificities that could have influenced the present results, for example, the predominance of mastery avoidance-oriented students (83%). Most studies until now have pointed to a mastery approach predominance of medical students’ goals [ 62 ]. However, none of them, for the best of our knowledge, were performed in Latin America.…”

The Achievement Goals of Pre-Service Turkish Teachers

“…Based on the findings of the study, it can be stated that most of the pre-service Turkish teachers have learning-approach achievement goal, that some of them have learning-avoidance achievement goal, and that fewer have performance-approach achievement goal. In this regard, it can be concluded that the academic performance of the participants is positively affected and increased when they acquire achievement, and this opinion is an indication that the pre-service teachers have a learning-approach achievement goal at this point (Akın and Arslan, 2014;Babenko, Daniels, White, Oswald andRoss, 2018 Kayis andCeyhan, 2015;Toğluk, 2009).…”