gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Problem-based Learning (PBL) has become a key element in medical education in Germany by now. Many medical schools have integrated PBL-elements into their curricula. Two important key elements of PBL are self-structured learning and the creation of individual learning objectives within the group under the supervision of a tutor. In addition, PBL presents a special work environment for the tutors, who need to adapt to this unfamiliar form of higher education.

Objectives: There is little research available on the question what influence the tutors' academic background (natural scientists/pre-clinician vs. practicing physicians/clinicians) has on the creation of learning objectives by the students and therefore on their content focus. In our study, we aim to examine that influence and let the students assess the teachers' work indirectly via an analysis of the created learning objectives.

Materials & Methods: We collected 2984 learning objectives from 2 student cohorts between April 2014 and July 2015. This sample covered 62 PBL-groups over a period of 3 semesters consisting of a maximum of 10 students as well as 1 tutor per group, so overall, we included a total of about 620 students and 55 tutors. All objectives were collected, coded and correlated with the respective tutors" background.

Results: Data shows that if the tutor was a clinician, 48% of the learning objectives were related to preclinical topics and 26% were associated with clinical topics. If the tutor was a pre-clinician 45% objectives were preclinical ones and 27% clinical. The remaining percentages could not be clearly associated with preclinical or clinical topics and/or touched both categories.

Conclusion: The academic background of the tutor (clinician/physician or scientist/pre-clinician) has no effect on the relation of preclinical versus clinical learning objectives created by the students.