Medical Student Attendance at Non-compulsory Lectures

Abstract

The General Medical Council in the UK recommends that undergraduate medical students be exposed to a variety of learning opportunities and increasingly take responsibility for their own learning. This study presents quantitative and qualitative data relating to attendance at non-compulsory plenary lectures in order to understand factors affecting the value placed by students on this component of the first 2 years of a contemporary medical curriculum. Attendance data were available for 87% first year and 78% second year plenary lectures. There was no difference in attendance at lectures that were delivered telematically to a remote site when compared with those where the speaker was present. There were markedly more students attending lectures at the beginning of the first academic year, with numbers decreasing as the year progressed. More first year students attended lectures on biomedical science and clinically focussed topics than on human science and public health whereas second year student attendance was similar across topics. Reasons given for non-attendance at plenary sessions fell into "student-related" factors (e.g. dislike of lecture-based learning) and "teaching-related" factors (e.g. perceived variable quality of lectures). This study confirms that some students value lectures highly as a method to supplement other learning opportunities, whereas others find they learn better by other means.

Could Attendance at Medical School be improved? A Prospective Study of Medical Education at The University of Liverpool: Study of Attendance at a UK Medical School

“…39,50 Our study data has demonstrated that multiple lectures in one day result in better attendance (median 72.9% and 52.6% for both multiple and single lectures in one day respectively). In addition to this, students agreed via our survey that they were unlikely to attend a single scheduled lecture.…”

“…39,51 To tackle this problem university faculties should plan student-friendly timetables. 52 For example, non-attendance was higher on Mondays and Fridays in studies of health science students, but also in the wider student body.…”

“…39 Westrick et al demonstrated that 45% of students suggested a reason for absence to be tiredness from studying the night before. 48 When we asked our student cohort if they attended lectures to gain insight into the topic or to learn, the majority (56%) stated it was to gain insight.…”

“…[29][30][31][32][33] Furthermore, improved access to online materials is an increasingly common reason for students' non-attendance. 1,6,29,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40] It must be recognised that UK medical schools have large annual cohorts and it is therefore insurmountable to cater to individual learning style preferences within these sizeable groups. However, absenteeism amongst medical students is worrying for providers of medical education given their accountability for the overall professional performance of graduates and the increasing demands of financing such courses.…”

“…58 However, there is a worry that this may increase temptation to 'skip' lectures and indeed, access to electronic resources means many medical students now choose not to attend teaching sessions, opting to carry out their own learning instead. 39,40,51,70 Studies have shown that students who used notes provided by the lecturer had higher mean exams scores than those who didn't. 26,59 Harmon et al found that when students attend the lecture covering the topic in their exam, they are almost 20% more likely to answer correctly when compared to those students who solely study using the online material.…”