The impact of learning goals on the professional development of final-year medical students in a curriculum based on entrustable professional activities

Abstract

Abstract Medical students regularly face transitions between different workplaces and roles. The main goal for final-year medical students is to grow towards being junior doctors during their last (or senior) clerkship. This transition provides excellent possibilities for growth and development, while simultaneously causing stress. Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a crucial skill for (final-year) medical students and medical doctors. Creating learning goals is a key factor in self-regulated learning. To this end, we conducted a mixed method study to explore in what way learning goals in an entrustable professional activities (EPA) based curriculum contributes to the development of final-year medical students and their transition towards becoming junior doctors. We included fifty-three final-year medical students and analyzed their feedback forms, EPAs and mid- and end-term evaluations. Final-year medical students are aware of the upcoming transition. We studied their learning goals and identified four themes that specifically contribute to the transition: future career, growing leadership, increasing responsibilities and personal professional development. Our main findings are that students are aware of the transition they are expected to make in their senior clerkship and that this transition is likely to happen earlier for students with transition-related learning goals than for students without those. Additionally, these students ask more feedback and receive higher end grades when compared to students without transition-related learning goals. This study is a first exploration of how our EPAs correspond with the students’ learning goals and their transition-related needs. We recommend to further research on how to facilitate this important transition.