Departmet of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia.
School of Postgraduate Studies, Africa Research University, Lusaka, Zambia.
J Educ Eval Health Prof. 2023;20:16. doi: 10.3352/jeehp.2023.20.16. Epub 2023 Jun 1.
This study aimed to detect relationships between undergraduate students' attitudes toward communication skills learning and demographic variables (such as age, academic year, and gender). Understanding these relationships could provide information for communication skills facilitators and curriculum planners on structuring course delivery and integrating communication skills training into the medical curriculum.
The descriptive study involved a survey of 369 undergraduate students from 2 medical schools in Zambia who participated in communication skills training stratified by academic year using the Communication Skills Attitude Scale. Data were collected between October and December 2021 and analyzed using IBM SPSS for Windows version 28.0.
One-way analysis of variance revealed a significant difference in attitude between at least 5 academic years. There was a significant difference in attitudes between the 2nd and 5th academic years (t=5.95, P˂0.001). No significant difference in attitudes existed among the academic years on the negative subscale; the 2nd and 3rd (t=3.82, P=0.004), 4th (t=3.61, P=0.011), 5th (t=8.36, P˂0.001), and 6th (t=4.20, P=0.001) academic years showed significant differences on the positive subscale. Age showed no correlation with attitudes. There was a more favorable attitude to learning communication skills among the women participants than among the men participants (P=0.006).
Despite positive general attitudes toward learning communication skills, the difference in attitude between the genders, academic years 2 and 5, and the subsequent classes suggest a re-evaluation of the curriculum and teaching methods to facilitate appropriate course structure according to the academic years and a learning process that addressees gender differences.
本研究旨在检测医学生对沟通技巧学习的态度与人口统计学变量（如年龄、学年和性别）之间的关系。了解这些关系可以为沟通技巧促进者和课程规划者提供信息，以便为课程提供结构，并将沟通技巧培训纳入医学课程。
本描述性研究调查了赞比亚 2 所医学院的 369 名本科生，他们在学年基础上通过沟通技巧态度量表参与了沟通技巧培训。数据于 2021 年 10 月至 12 月间收集，并使用 IBM SPSS for Windows 版本 28.0 进行分析。
方差分析显示，态度在至少 5 个学年之间存在显著差异。在第 2 学年和第 5 学年之间的态度存在显著差异（t=5.95，P˂0.001）。在负向子量表上，各学年之间的态度没有显著差异；第 2 学年和第 3 学年（t=3.82，P=0.004）、第 4 学年（t=3.61，P=0.011）、第 5 学年（t=8.36，P˂0.001）和第 6 学年（t=4.20，P=0.001）之间存在显著差异。在正向子量表上，年龄与态度无关。女性参与者比男性参与者更倾向于学习沟通技巧（P=0.006）。
尽管对学习沟通技巧有积极的总体态度，但性别、第 2 学年和第 5 学年以及随后各学年之间的态度差异表明，需要重新评估课程和教学方法，根据学年和学习过程来促进适当的课程结构，并解决性别差异。
