Personality and learning styles in relation to attitudes towards interprofessional education: a cross-sectional study on undergraduate medical students during their clinical courses

Correlation between learning styles and attitudes toward interprofessional education among medical students: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Interprofessional teamwork improves patient care quality, safety, and health outcomes. Interprofessional education (IPE) is crucial in today's medical education to prepare students for the workforce as integral members of a collaborative team. The diversity of IPE learners indicates the importance of exploring the relationship between learning styles and attitudes toward IPE. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between learning styles and attitudes toward IPE.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2023 and September 2023 in 49 colleges located in the south-eastern region of China. A convenience sampling approach was employed, selecting 500 students majoring in Clinical Medicine and Nursing. The students completed an online questionnaire, which included sociodemographic characteristics, educational characteristics, interprofessional educational characteristics, learning styles, and the readiness for interprofessional learning scale, and Kolb's learning style inventory. Descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

RESULTS

The most learners are diverger (93.2%), followed by assimilator (3.4%), accommodator (2.6%), and Converger (0.8%). The total score on the RIPLS was 69.70 (7.42), ranging from 48 to 88. A statistical relationship could be established between learning styles and attitudes toward IPE.

CONCLUSION

Abstract conceptualization and active experimentation learning modes and convergers were closely linked with positive attitudes toward IPE. Gender, age, and study stress can affect attitudes toward IPE. This study highlights the need for medical education curricula to integrate innovative teaching methods such as PBL, role-playing, scenario simulation and clinical early exposure to strengthen professional identity, and improve abilities related to interprofessional learning.

Exploring differences in and factors influencing self-efficacy for competence in interprofessional collaborative practice among health professions students

The value of health care delivered via effective interprofessional teams has created an imperative for interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP). To inform IPE strategies, we investigated differences in perceived self-efficacy (SE) for competence in ICP among health professions students. The study data were collected between 2015 and 2019 from students from 13 different health professions programmes (N = 3,497) before an annual institutional interprofessional programme. Students completed the IPECC-SET-27, a validated instrument evaluating perceived SE for competence in ICP, and rated their 1) amount of previous contact with, and 2) perceived understanding of, the role of different health professions. Students in different health professions education programmes were compared using parametric statistics. Regression analyses explored factors influencing SE for competence in ICP. Findings revealed significant differences in perceived SE for competence in ICP between programmes (p < .05). Specifically, health information management/health informatics, dentistry, medicine, and nursing students expressed relatively higher SE, whereas physical therapy and occupational therapy students expressed relatively lower SE. Perceived understanding of the role of health professions (p < .01) and gender (p < .01) contributed significantly to predicting perceived SE for competence in ICP, while the amount of previous contact with other health professions did not (p = .42). The findings highlight the value of designing IPE with consideration of specific learner needs.

The impact of learning styles on attitudes to interprofessional learning among nursing students: a longitudinal mixed methods study

BACKGROUND

A functional interprofessional teamwork improves collaborative patient-centred care. Participation in interprofessional education promotes cooperation after graduation. Individuals tend to use different approaches to learning depending on their individual preferences. The purpose of this study was to explore nursing students' experiences of professional development with a focus on the relationship between attitudes to interprofessional learning and learning styles.

METHODS

A longitudinal parallel mixed-methods design. The study was carried out at a Swedish three-year nursing program from August 2015 to January 2020. On enrolment, thirty-four students self-assessed their attitudes to interprofessional learning according to the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale, and their learning style according to Kolbs' Learning Style Inventory. In the final semester the students participated in an interview focusing on their experiences and perceptions of teamwork and they self-assessed their attitudes to interprofessional learning again.

RESULTS

Our findings indicated that 64.7% had a predominantly concrete learning style and 35.3% had a predominantly reflective learning style. No significant relationship with internal consistency reliability was identified among the participants between attitudes to interprofessional learning and learning styles. The content analysis resulted in four main categories: Amazing when it's functional; Deepened insight of care; Increased quality of care; Understanding own profession which were summarized in the theme: Well-functioning teams improve patients' outcome and working environment.

CONCLUSION

The students' attitudes to interprofessional learning were positive and it was considered as an opportunity to participate in interprofessional cooperation during internship. Transformative learning is a useful strategy in fostering interprofessional relationships due to the interdependence of various professions in interprofessional teams. When students are guided to use reflection to develop new perspectives and meaning structures, they acquire emotional and rational skills beneficial for interprofessional cooperation.

The relationship between personality traits and learning styles in medical education students at Iran University of Medical Sciences: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

The relationship between personality traits and learning styles is an attractive subject for researchers. "Learning Style" indicates on a method of education for effective studying. The Kolb's Learning Style is a known theory in the field of learning style. The Kolb's four learning styles include: Divergent, convergent, assimilating, and accommodating. Furthermore, personality, known as relatively fixed and durable characteristics that distinguish people from each other, and personality contains five broad identified traits of extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. In this study, we intended to evaluate the relationship between personality traits and learning styles in medical education students.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This research was an observational analytic cross-sectional study that was conducted on medical education students at Iran University of Medical Sciences, between 2018 and 2019, and 31 students were participated as volunteers. NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Kolb's learning style inventory (version 3.1) were used to evaluate the students' personality traits and learning styles, respectively. The simple and multiple analysis of multinomial logistic regression were used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS

The results indicated that if one unit would be added to the score of the "Extraversion" personality trait, the estimated odds, by which the student's learning style would become "Accommodating" rather than "Assimilating," is 1.3 times more than the basic condition, in which "Extraversion" score would be remained unchanged (P = 0.035).

CONCLUSION

It seems that "Accommodating" learning style might be related to "Extraversion" personality trait in medical education students. However, researches with a larger population are suggested.

A Holistic Approach of Personality Traits in Medical Students: An Integrative Review

Personality is one of the most crucial aspects of human life, since it influences all human behaviours in both personal and social life, and might also trigger important conflicts with a person’s surroundings in the setting of incompatible traits and characteristics. It is true that ‘one must be born’ for a certain medical specialty, but several components of personality might be educated with proper training. Increased levels of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness associated with lower levels of Neuroticism might represent the key combination for achieving professional satisfaction in the medical profession. Medical students should receive proper interprofessional education, since effective interprofessional relationships among healthcare providers definitely improve patients’ safety. Empathy contributes to effective patient–physician communication, improving patient trust, compliance, and satisfaction, being positively correlated with Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Extraversion. Emotional intelligence—the capacity to respond to one’s own and others’ emotions—was proven to contribute, in a synergistic way with empathy, to increasing empathic ability. Clinical communication skills represent a key component in medical students in order to achieve the best patient care, and they are certainly related and/or influenced by empathy, interprofessional collaboration skills, emotional intelligence and, especially, personality traits. Taking into account the complex interactions mentioned above, the implementation of effective courses based on these concepts in medical students, intending to promote the development of clinical communication skills, represents a real emergency, since it might result in a reduction in medical errors and subsequent related deaths. A thorough understanding of students’ personality is mandatory before designing these courses in order to provide a training tailored to their personality styles.

Medical Students' Personalities: A Critical Factor for Doctor-Patient Communication

The aim of this study was to assess the level of creativity and personality traits and their mutual influence on medical students using the DECAS and BWAS. We performed a prospective descriptive study on 119 medical students from Târgu Mureș, Romania between November 2020 and July 2021, who answered questions relating to the BWAS and DECAS scales to evaluate their creativity and personality traits. Our findings pointed out a reverse correlation between age and both the original and revised BWAS (r = -0.2037, p = 0.0263; r = -0.1931, p = 0.0354). In terms of extraversion, we found a significant positive correlation for both openness (r = 0.3032, p = 0.0008) and emotional stability (r = 0.2868, p = 0.0016) and a negative correlation between extraversion and agreeability (r = -0.2394, p = 0.0087). Regarding creativity, we found positive correlations between emotional stability and both the original and revised BWAS (r = 0.20, p = 0.0279; r = 0.20, p = 0.0245). Medical students' creativity might be positively influenced by emotional stability and seems to decrease with age. Higher extraversion scores could be related to increased openness and emotional stability as well as decreased agreeability.