Changes in first year medical students’ attitudes and perceptions toward cultural diversity: a pilot study in Korea

Purpose: Cultural diversity (CD) education in undergraduate medical training has gained increasing attention as patient populations become more diverse. This pilot study examined preliminary changes in first-year medical students’ attitudes and perceptions toward CD following a single structured session informed by Dogra’s (2005) perspective on CD education at a Korean medical school.Methods: A single-group pre–post design was employed with 85 first-year medical students during the 2023–2024 academic year. A 14-item questionnaire, drawn from Panthi and his colleagues and reclassified by the authors into four domains (Domain 1: Q1–Q3; Domain 2: Q4–Q6; Domain 3: Q7–Q9; Domain 4: Q10–Q14), organized with reference to Dogra’s (2005) distinction between cultural expertise and cultural sensibility, was administered immediately before and after a 3-hour structured session. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with Bonferroni correction applied for item-level comparisons (adjusted p<0.004).Results: A total of 51 of 85 students (60.0%) completed both surveys and were included in the analysis. The total attitude score increased significantly from 51.77±5.47 to 57.27±6.14 (Cohen’s d=0.92). Significant improvements were observed in nine items (Q1, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q10–Q14). Items related to empathy and openness (Q2), bias self-awareness (Q6), and acculturative attitudes (Q7–Q9) did not reach corrected significance.Conclusion: Attitudinal responsiveness varied across domains. Value-congruent and clinically oriented attitudes shifted through direct instruction, acculturative attitudes showed only surface-level trends, and bias self-awareness showed no change.