The role of academic emotions on medical and allied health students and #8217; motivated self-regulated learning strategies

Abstract

Objective: Academic emotions have been found to be important predictors of students' self-regulation. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of academic emotions on undergraduate students' self-regulation at a medical college in Malawi. Materials and Methods: 1 st year students (n = 205) from the college responded to two separate questionnaires assessing their emotions and motivated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies employed in their classes of anatomy (n = 51), pharmacy (n = 44), medical laboratory science (n = 44), and physiotherapy (n = 66). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20. Results: Students experienced hope (F [3, 201] = 3.05, P = 0.030) differently across the four programs. Female students reported high levels of anxiety (P < 0.05) and boredom (P < 0.05) than male students, while male students reported high levels of enjoyment (P < 0.001) and hope (P < 0.001) than their counterparts. Cognitive strategies were positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.42), hope (β = 0.34), anger (β = 0.18), and value (β = 0.61) while resource management was positively predicted by enjoyment (β = 0.56) and value (β = 0.46). Finally, task value was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.33) and enjoyment (β = 0.29), while expectancy was positively predicted by hope (β = 0.37). Conclusions: The study shows that class-related emotions and motivation have an influence on medical students' SRL. Therefore it is important to foster pleasant emotions, which trigger motivation for the betterment of students' self-regulation.

The role of intrinsic goal orientation on medical and allied health student' deep learning approach

“…This finding support other research findings in sciences, especially in medical education, which indicate that male students are more self-efficacious and therefore become more motivated to study [12,34,35]. As Ngwira et al [1] argue, this gender difference in intrinsic goal orientation suggests that there are some factors that enhance male students' motivation, or harm female students' motivation when it comes to learning sciences. This could be due to lack of female role models in sciences and the gender-linked stereotypes.…”

“…This could be due to lack of female role models in sciences and the gender-linked stereotypes. In Malawi, this gender gap toward learning science exists as early as primary school [1]. Boys' performance outweighs that of girls in science subjects like Mathematics and as a result, girls believe they are not good at sciences, even if they are, and this weakens their motivation to learn.…”

“…In line with this argument, Dolmans et al [5] argue that a highly perceived workload and assessment that is perceived as not satisfying deep learning are postulated to augment surface learning. As reported by a number of studies conducted in medical field, [1,31,32,33], students already perceive medical subjects especially Anatomy as overloaded and difficult to understand. The perceived overload, coupled with the assessment methods commonly done in medical field, students adopt rote learning as their principal learning strategy to cope with their studies [27].…”

“…Empirically, research reveals that deep learning approach has been associated with highquality academic outcomes; students who use such an approach tend to retain, integrate and transfer information learnt at a higher rate, thereby earning higher grades [21]- [25]. Additionally, deep learning approach has also been associated with an enjoyable learning experience [25], which enhances motivation, facilitates learning and increases academic performance [1].…”

“…Medical institutions have a unique obligation to train medical and other health professionals fit for the practice [1]. In medical profession, issues of competencies and outcomes are important aspects in performance.…”