Learning strategies and their correlation with academic success in biology and physiology examinations during the preclinical years of medical school

BACKGROUND: Efficient learning is essential for successful completion of the medical degree and students use a variety of strategies to cope with university requirements. However, strategies that lead to academic success have hardly been explored. We therefore evaluated the individual learning approaches used by a cohort of medical students in their first and second preclinical years and analyzed possible correlations with examination scores. METHODS: 107 students participated in our longitudinal survey on cognitive, meta-cognitive and resource-oriented learning strategies using the LIST-questionnaire (Lernstrategien im Studium). The students were surveyed twice while in their first and second year of medical school, respectively and academic performances were assessed as scores obtained in two examinations written shortly after the LIST surveys. Statistical evaluations included comparisons and cluster analyses. RESULTS: We here identified four different patterns of learning strategy combinations, describing the relaxed, diligent, hard-working, and sociable learners. About half of the students stayed true to their initially registered pattern of learning strategy combinations while 53 students underwent a change between the first and second surveys. Changes were predominantly made between the relaxed and the sociable and between the diligent and the hard-working learners, respectively. Examination results suggested that the diligent and hard-working learners were academically more successful than the relaxed and sociable ones. CONCLUSION: Early habits of sociable learning were quickly abandoned however, not in favor of more successful patterns. It is therefore essential to develop interventions on learning skills that have a lasting impact on the pattern of the students´ learning strategy combinations.