Centre for Health Science Education, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
School of Therapeutic Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
BMC Med Educ. 2022 Mar 28;22(1):208. doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03274-1.
The National Benchmark Test (NBT) that determines academic readiness is widely used by Faculties as an additional measure to select students for the study of medicine. Despite this, many students continue to experience academic challenges that culminate in delayed graduation and sometimes academic exclusion or discontinuation of studies.
This study aimed to understand academic and non-academic variables linked with academic difficulties in the first three years of medical education.
The study sample consisted of six cohorts of medical students for the period 2011 to 2016 (n = 1392). Only the first three of the six-year medical programme were selected for analysis. Survival analysis and Cox Proportional Hazard (CPH) was used to identify academic and non-academic variables associated with academic difficulties.
A total of 475 students (34%) experienced academic difficulty; 221 (16%) in the first year of study, 192 (14%) in the second year and 62 (5%) in the third year of study. The results show that Intermediate Upper, Lower and Basic levels for all NBT domains, living in university residence, rurality and male gender were risk factors for academic difficulty.
In mitigating these factors, the NBT must inform the type of support programmes to augment the students' skills and promote academic success. Additionally, existing support programmes should be evaluated to ascertain if they reach students at risk and whether participating in these programmes yield positive academic outcomes.
国家基准测试（NBT）是一种广泛应用于各学院的学术预备能力测试，作为选择医学生的额外衡量标准。尽管如此，许多学生仍然面临学术挑战，最终导致毕业延迟，有时甚至会被学术淘汰或中止学业。
本研究旨在了解与医学教育头三年学术困难相关的学术和非学术变量。
研究样本包括 2011 年至 2016 年期间的六个医学学生队列（n=1392）。仅选择了六年医学课程的前三个进行分析。生存分析和 Cox 比例风险（CPH）用于识别与学术困难相关的学术和非学术变量。
共有 475 名学生（34%）经历了学术困难；第一年有 221 名（16%），第二年有 192 名（14%），第三年有 62 名（5%）。结果表明，NBT 所有领域的中上、中下和基础水平、居住在大学宿舍、农村地区和男性性别是学术困难的危险因素。
为了减轻这些因素的影响，NBT 必须告知支持计划的类型，以提高学生的技能并促进学业成功。此外，应该评估现有的支持计划，以确定它们是否能覆盖到有风险的学生，以及参加这些计划是否能产生积极的学术成果。
