Problem-based and conventional medical education from a student perspective : a qualitative analysis comparing students' experience of medical education, approach to learning and reading comprehension

Abstract: The study is primarily an empirical investigation to students' experiences of university education, approaches to learning and comprehension of a learning task. Sixty medical students, equally distributed over a PBL and a traditional medical school have participated in this study. Data consist of semi-structured interviews, which have been analyzed mainly using a phenomenographic approach, i.e., the aim has been to establish a set of categories for the description of differences in conceptions expressed by the participants.The results showed that PBL students seem to have experienced a more flexible, meaningful, and enjoyable education compared with their counterparts from the traditional program. The domain of learning approach comprise both approach to a specific learning task as well as approach to learning in general The results in this section indicate that PBL students showed an inclination towards adopting comprehension approaches both in general and to the specific task, whereas the conventional students' propensity was towards reproductive strategiesAs regards the students' comprehension of the learning task, the results indicated that the students from both programs perform more or less equally. Thus, the results appear to be, somewhat paradoxical. It was hypothesized that using a comprehension-oriented approach would yield a better understanding of the learning tasks. Our results did not support this assumption  To understand why this was not the case several explanations seemed plausible. Among many other things, it seems to be difficult to put into practice a PEL-curriculum in a setting which originally did not encompass PBL supportive characteristics.One conclusion that can be drawn from the results is that when students enter different programs they can still maintain their approach to learning even if they report differently about their experience of studying.