Can we influence medical students’ approaches to learning?

Students use three approaches to learning and studying: deep, surface and strategic. These are influenced by the learning environment. In response to the General Medical Council's report 'Tomorrow's Doctors', the second year of the medical course at the University of Edinburgh was changed to promote deep learning, with learning objectives constructed according to the SOLO taxonomy, learning methods such as problem-based learning and constructively aligned written assignments and examinations. The Approaches to Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) was used to evaluate the effect of these changes. Scores were highest for deep approaches and lowest for surface approaches and showed almost no change during the course. There are various possible explanations. The students already scored highly on deep approaches at the beginning of Year 2 and it may be difficult to increase the deep scores further, particularly over the relatively short period of the study. Alternatively, the effect of the changes in learning environment may not be strong enough to change entrenched approaches which have hitherto been successful.