Family Practice and Palliative Care (Mar 2019)
The approaches of failed medical students to academic failure: a qualitative research
Abstract
Introduction: There are manyquantitative studies on academic failure in the medical faculty. This studyaimed to investigate the opinions of students who were having an academicfailure in the medical school and to reveal the underlying causes.Methods: The study was designed as a qualitative research. The population ofthe study comprised of students failed while they were studying at the İzmirKatip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine during the 2014- 2015 academicyear. Failure was defined as the repetition of a study year. Thus, phase 4 and5 students were not included. The study sample was composed of medical studentswho failed at phase 1, 2, or 3, chosen by quota sampling. Data was collectedusing semi-structured questions asked by face-to-face interviews. Theinterviews were done between April-May 2016. A personal information form wasused to collect data related to the students’ socio-demographic, individual,and academic characteristics. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis.Results: After the interpretation was made by four researchers, the followingthemes were created: Opinions and beliefs of the students about the effects offaculty on academic success; attitudes, beliefs, and opinions on studybehaviors; feelings and believes on becoming a medical doctor; and views aboutthe impact of the social environment. It was determined that the mostfrequently mentioned factor by the students as the leading cause of theirrepetition of the class was an insufficient academic effort. Other remarkabletopics were; students not benefiting from counseling services and not attendingthe lectures of instructors of whom they didn’t like the way of presentationand lecturing.Conclusions: Introducing students about advisory services given by lecturers andproviding advice from their experienced advisors especially to the students whorepeat classes, can contribute to academic success. Training of lecturers oneffective lecturing can contribute to academic achievement by increasing theattendance of students. Giving due importance to introduce the occupation fromthe early days of education can improve the motivation to learning.
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