School of Health and Life Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Department of Trade Statistics, National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda.
Med Educ Online. 2024 Dec 31;29(1):2403807. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2024.2403807. Epub 2024 Sep 13.
Belongingness has been proposed as a potential proxy for legitimate peripheral participation in medical education. Previous studies have shown good internal and external validity for tools designed to measure this variable, with potential use measuring the effectiveness of clinical teaching environments and as a marker of student wellbeing. This study examined changes in belongingness in medical students at the University of Exeter measured in spring 2019 and the equivalent period in 2021, during which COVID-19 related restrictions were in place in the United Kingdom. This study used a validated assessment tool that was self-administered via an online survey platform in 2021. Anonymised data was collected from undergraduate medical students from all years of training and results compared with previous data collected in 2019. The belongingness assessment tool described here had validity in undergraduate medical students studying at the University of Exeter and identified statistically significant changes in belongingness (as measured with this tool) between 2019 and the period during which COVID-19 restrictions were in place. These results suggest that belongingness - in undergraduate medical students fluctuates and varies under different conditions and that there was a statistically significant change during the period of lockdown restrictions. The ability to measure this key facet of educational development has the potential to monitor teaching environments to ensure optimal learning conditions for all students. Further work is required to assess whether the impacts of lockdown restrictions are transient or persist beyond the period of teaching restrictions and to determine any association with academic outcomes.
归属感被认为是医学教育中合法边缘参与的潜在替代指标。先前的研究表明，用于测量这一变量的工具具有良好的内部和外部有效性，具有衡量临床教学环境有效性和作为学生幸福感标志物的潜在用途。本研究调查了 2019 年春季和 2021 年同期（英国实施 COVID-19 相关限制期间）埃克塞特大学医学生归属感的变化，在此期间使用了一种经过验证的评估工具，通过在线调查平台进行自我管理。从所有培训年级的本科医学生中收集匿名数据，并将结果与 2019 年收集的先前数据进行比较。这里描述的归属感评估工具在埃克塞特大学学习的本科医学生中具有有效性，并确定了归属感（通过该工具衡量）在 2019 年和 COVID-19 限制期间之间存在统计学上的显著变化。这些结果表明，归属感——在不同条件下，本科医学生的归属感波动且有所不同，在封锁限制期间存在统计学上的显著变化。衡量这一教育发展关键方面的能力有可能监测教学环境，以确保所有学生的最佳学习条件。需要进一步工作来评估封锁限制的影响是暂时的还是在教学限制期间之后持续存在，并确定与学业成绩的任何关联。
