Effects of a Revised Preclinical Curriculum on Students' Perceptions of Their Cognitive Behaviors, Attitudes to Social Issues in Medicine, and the Learning Environment

BACKGROUND: A modular, systems-based preclinical curriculum acceptable to faculty members who had rejected problem-based learning was introduced in 1997. PURPOSE: To evaluate to what extent the new curriculum is meeting some of its major goals. METHODS: We administered selected scales from 3 survey instruments to the last 2 classes in the old curriculum and the first 3 in the new curriculum. We also compared our results with those from other medical schools that had used the same scales. RESULTS: The new curriculum has had positive effects on students' perceptions of the learning environment (effect sizes mostly small to medium, d = .03 to .60) but less effect on their attitudes to social issues in medicine or on their preference for conceptualization versus memorization when studying (most effect sizes below small; largest d = .026). Our results are similar to those for problem-based learning curricula for the learning environment scales and to traditional curricula for the cognitive behavior scales. CONCLUSIONS: Some of the goals for the new curriculum are being achieved almost to the levels reported for problem-based curricula.