The perceived stress and approach to learning effects on academic performance among Sudanese medical students
Keywords:
Medical students, Academic environment, Approach, Learning, SudanAbstract
Background: There is an increasing awareness of the perceived stress and approach to learning effects on academic achievement.
Objective: This study aimed to assess the educational environment and approach to learning in clinical phase medical students.
Methods: This comparative cross-sectional study was conducted among fifty-nine clinical stage medical students at Omdurman Islamic University (Khartoum, Sudan) during the period from June to August 2016. All the participants signed a written informed consent, then responded to a structured questionnaire to collect demographic data, the two process study questionnaires and the perceived stress questionnaire. The ethical committee of Omdurman Islamic University approved the research, and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to compare the students based on sex, class, and their grades. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 22, using descriptive statistics and t-test.
Results: There were fifty-nine medical students, of whom 41.5% were males with a mean age of 22.62±1.84 years. Stress was evident in the majority of medical students (88.1%). The students are using the deep approach to learning more than the superficial approach (The total score was 29.49±6.39 for the deep approach, while it was 20.81±6.94 for the superficial approach). In the current study, no differences were found regarding sex, class, or grades apart from the superficial approach which was used less among women.
Conclusion: The perceived stress was prevalent among medical students in Omdurman Islamic University, Sudan, the students used the deep approach to learning more than the superficial, no differences were evident in the perceived stress and the learning approach in relation to sex, class level or grades apart from less superficial approach among women.
References
Mosley TH Jr, Perrin SG, Neral SM, Dubbert PM, Grothues CA, Pinto BM. Stress, Coping, and well-being
among third-year medical students. Acad Med. 1994; 69: 765-7. doi: 10.1097/00001888-199409000-00024.
PMID: 8074778.
Baldassin S, Alves TC, de Andrade AG, Nogueira Martins LA. The characteristic of depressive symptoms
in medical students during medical education and training: A cross sectional study. BMC Med Educ. 2008;
: 60. doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-8-60. PMID: 19077227, PMCID: PMC2621219.
Bolanowski W. Anxiety about professional future among young doctors. Int J Occup Med Environ Health.
; 18(4): 367-74. PMID: 16617853.
Supe AN. A Study of stress in medical students at GS Seth Medical College. J Postgrad Med. 1998; 44(1):
-6. PMID: 10703558.
Hatcher L, Prus JS, Englehard B, Farmer TM. A measure of academic educational constraints: Out-of- Class circumstances that inhibit college students development. Educ Psychol Meas. 1991; 51(4): 953-62.
doi: 10.1177/001316449105100415.
Ishak W, Nikravesh R, Lederer S, Perry R, Ogunyemi D, Bernstein C. Burnout in medical students: a
systematic review. Clin Teach. 2013; 10(4): 242-5. doi: 10.1111/tct.12014. PMID: 23834570.
Newble DI, Entwistle NJ. Entwistle. Learning styles and approaches: implication for medical education.
Med Educ. 1986; 20(3): 162-75. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1986.tb01163.x. PMID: 3724571.
Burton L, Nelson L. The relationships between personality, approaches to learning and academic success in
first-year psychology distance education students. Critical visions: thinking, learning and researching in
higher education Proceedings of the 29th HERDSA Annual Conference. Perth: Western Australia. 2006;
-72.
Al-qahtani MF. Associations between approaches to study, the learning environment, and academic
achievement. Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences. 2015; 10(1): 56-65. doi:
1016/j.jtumed.2015.01.014.
Munshi FM, Al-Rukban MO, Al-Hoqail I. Reliability and validity of an Arabic version of the revised twofactor study process questionnaire R-SPQ-2F. J Family Community Med. 2012; 19(1): 33–7. doi:
4103/2230-8229.94010. PMID: 22518356, PMCID: PMC3326768.
Cohen S, Kamarck T, Mermelstein R. A global measure of perceived stress. J Health Soc Behav. 1983;
(4): 385–96. doi: 10.2307/2136404. PMID: 6668417.
Borjalilu S, Mohammadi A, Mojtahedzadeh R. Sources and Severity of Perceived Stress Among Iranian
Medical Students. Iran Red Crescent Med J. 2015; 17(10): e17767. doi: 10.5812/ircmj.17767. PMID:
, PMCID: PMC4636747.
Sherina MS, Rampal L, Kaneson N. Psychological stress among undergraduate medical students. Med J
Malaysia. 2004; 59(2): 207–11. PMID: 15559171.
Shah M, Hasan S, Malik S, Sreeramareddy CT. Perceived stress, sources and severity of stress among
medical undergraduates in a Pakistani medical school. BMC Med Educ. 2010; 10: 2. doi: 10.1186/1472- 6920-10-2.
Chen Y, Henning M, Yielder J, Jones R, Wearn A, Weller J. Progress testing in the medical curriculum:
students' approaches to learning and perceived stress. BMC Med Educ. 2015; 15: 147. doi:
1186/s12909-015-0426-y
Shah DK, Yadav RL, Sharma D, Yadav PK, Sapkota NK, Jha RK, et al. Learning approach among health
sciences students in a medical college in Nepal: a cross-sectional study. Adv Med Educ Pract. 2016; 7: 137- 43. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S100968. PMID: 27019603, PMCID: PMC4786058.
Cumplido-Hernández G, Campos-Arciniega MF, Chávez-López A, Pérez-García V. [Learning approaches
used by undergraduate interns in the development of a medical specialty]. Rev Med Inst Mex Seguro Soc.
; 44(4): 321-8. PMID: 16904035.
Naqvi Z, Ahmed R. Learning approaches and academic performance of undergraduate medical students in
Pakistan. J Pak Med Assoc. 2000; 50(1): 20–5. PMID: 10770043.
Ward PJ. Influence of study approaches on academic outcomes during pre-clinical medical education. Med
Teach. 2011; 33(12): e651-62. doi: 10.3109/0142159X.2011.610843. PMID: 22225447.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 KNOWLEDGE KINGDOM PUBLISHING
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
