Study Habits of Highly Effective Medical Students

BACKGROUND: Study habits have been the most significant indicator of academic performance and play a unique role in students’ academic accomplishment. The study is aiming to determine the most common study habits of highly successful medical students and their relation to academic achievement. METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from September to December 2019 among medical students of both gender from six medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. The students answered the standardized questionnaires to study the different learning habits among medical students, including learning prioritization, knowledge retention strategies, motivation, daily hours of studying, study learning resources. RESULTS: Six hundred and seventy-five medical students enrolled themselves electively into the study. The results showed a significant correlation between study habits and students’ academic accomplishments. The top ten study habits of highly effective medical students are managing their time effectively, they get rid of interruptions (phone, family, friends) that disrupt their daily work, they use goal-setting to determine their most important activities, their daily study hours is ranging between 3 and 4 hours, they study alone for knowledge retention of medical information, learn from multiple sources and invest in technology with high efficiency, they contribute to the teaching of their peers, they study the main lecture slides with notes when no exam is coming, and they study lecture slides with notes and previous exam questions when preparing for upcoming exams; finally, they maintained motivation for self-gratification and fulfillment of their family dreams. CONCLUSION: This study’s outcomes consolidate general study practices that can be credited to learning achievement and expand recognition to inspire less accomplished students by investigating and exploring factors that have enhanced and worked for many accomplished students.