Self-reported generic learning skills proficiency: Another measure of medical school preparedness

Abstract

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...

Systematic Review of Learning Generic Skills in Higher Education—Enhancing and Impeding Factors

“…In Table 2, categories and subcategories of the measured generic skills are presented in greater detail. Most of the these studies that measured sets of generic skills utilized surveys (e.g., Jackson, 2014aJackson, , 2015Pita et al, 2015;Prokofieva et al, 2015;Abayadeera and Watty, 2016;Joseph et al, 2016;Monteiro et al, 2016;He et al, 2017;Burch et al, 2018;Akhmetshin et al, 2019;López et al, 2019). Control and experimental groups were also used in study designs (Guo, 2019;Tomasson Goodwill et al, 2019).…”

What Factors of the Teaching and Learning Environment Support the Learning of Generic Skills? First-Year Students’ Perceptions in Medicine, Dentistry and Psychology

“…University students perceive that collaboration skills develop the least during their studies, even though they are important working life skills (García-Aracil and Van der Velden, 2008;Tuononen et al, 2019a), whereas analyzing skills are well learned at university (Murdoch-Eaton et al, 2016;Tuononen et al, 2019a). Generic skills are also needed in learning, and medical students need them for their academic success (Murdoch-Eaton and Whittle, 2012;Winston et al, 2012;Burch et al, 2018). Therefore, it is important to examine how students perceive the learning of generic skills in health professions education.…”

Reflecting on our society?

“…The mnemonic was generally well perceived by teachers and students alike. The article by Burch et al [9] reminded me of Paulo Freire's [10] work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire believed that learners do not enter tertiary institutions as blank slates.…”

“…Freire believed that learners do not enter tertiary institutions as blank slates. Burch et al [9] studied the self-reported proficiency levels of medical students in six categories of generic learning skills and found a significant relationship with pre-university admission aptitude test scores, information technology proficiency on entry to university and early academic performance at university. Furthermore, academically weak students did not overestimate their skills proficiency.…”