The relationship between medical students' epistemological beliefs and achievement on a clinical performance examination.
- Author:
Sun A OH
1
;
Eun Kyung CHUNG
;
Eui Ryoung HAN
;
Young Jong WOO
;
Deiter KEVIN
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Clinical competence; Epistemological beliefs; Medical history taking; Physical examination; Physician-patient relations
- MeSH: *Achievement; Adult; *Attitude; *Clinical Competence; *Culture; *Education, Medical, Undergraduate; Educational Measurement; Female; Humans; *Knowledge; Male; Medical History Taking; Physical Examination; Physician-Patient Relations; Problem-Based Learning; Republic of Korea; Schools, Medical; *Students, Medical; Surveys and Questionnaires; Thinking; Young Adult
- From:Korean Journal of Medical Education 2016;28(1):29-34
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: PURPOSE: This study was to explore the relationship between clinical performance examination (CPX) achievement and epistemological beliefs to investigate the potentials of epistemological beliefs in ill-structured medical problem solving tasks. METHODS: We administered the epistemological beliefs questionnaire (EBQ) to fourth-year medical students and correlated the results with their CPX scores. The EBQ comprised 61 items reflecting five belief systems: certainty of knowledge, source of knowledge, rigidity of learning, ability to learn, and speed of knowledge acquisition. The CPX included scores for history taking, physical examination, and patient-physician interaction. RESULTS: The higher epistemological beliefs group obtained significantly higher scores on the CPX with regard to history taking and patient-physician interaction. The epistemological beliefs scores on certainty of knowledge and source of knowledge were significantly positively correlated with patient-physician interaction. The epistemological beliefs scores for ability to learn were significantly positively correlated with those for history taking, physical examination, and patient-physician interaction. CONCLUSION: Students with more sophisticated and advanced epistemological beliefs stances used more comprehensive and varied approaches in the patient-physician interaction. Therefore, educational efforts that encourage discussions pertaining to epistemological views should be considered to improve clinical reasoning and problem-solving competence in the clinic setting.
