Assessing the reliability and validity of the Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ2F) in Ghanaian medical students

Abstract

Purpose:We investigated the validity and reliability of the Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ2F) in preclinical students in Ghana.Methods:The R-SPQ2F was administered to 189 preclinical students of the University for Development Studies, School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Both descriptive and inferential statistics with Cronbach’s alpha test and factor analysis were done.Results:The mean age of the students was 22.69± 0.18years, 60.8% (n=115) were males and 42.3% (n=80) were in their second year of medical training. The students had higher mean deep approach scores (31.23±7.19) than that of surface approach scores (22.62±6.48). Findings of the R-SPQ2F gave credence to a solution of two-factors indicating deep and surface approaches accounting for 49.80% and 33.57%, respectively, of the variance. The scales of deep approach (Cronbach’s alpha, 0.80) and surface approach (Cronbach’s alpha, 0.76) and their subscales demonstrated an internal consistency that was good. The factorial validity was comparable to other studies.Conclusion:Our study confirms the construct validity and internal consistency of the R-SPQ2F for measuring approaches to learning in Ghanaian preclinical students. Deep approach was the most dominant learning approach among the students. The questionnaire can be used to measure students’ approaches to learning in Ghana and in other African countries.

Comparing The Learning Approaches Using Biggs Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) Among Dental Undergraduates

“…23 In our study, a higher mean score of deep learning approach and deep strategy was found in senior cohort as compare to junior cohort and these results were incongruent with the study conducted in Ghana in which DA was dominant learning approach among pre-clinical medical students. 27 The results of our study were analogous with the study of Migrani 9 which revealed that in every year of medical studies, the score of DA was lower. On the other hand, literature unveiled that there is a variation in learning style of students in all years of medical studies.…”

Students’ Approaches to Learning: Validating Study Processes Questionnaire for Use in Congolese Setting

“…These findings are consistent with previous researchers mentioning deep approaches to learning as most dominant (Pottier et al, 2008;Mogre & Amalba, 2014). Given that the students answered the questionnaire in relation to the study of their statistics course, their approaches are likely related to the specific context of statistics course for students in this department of Management, at Unikin.…”

“…The SPQ as well as its different versions is widely used to assess SAL. Initial studies in Africa have confirmed that the SPQ could be used as a valid instrument to assess SAL in this specific setting (Mogre & Amalba, 2014;Watkins & Mboya, 1997). However, investigations with respect to psychometric properties of this instrument have -to the best of our knowledge -never been systematically conducted in African French speaking countries.…”

Student Learning Approaches in A Ghanaian Medical School

“…The study findings have commonalities with other peer-reviewed work carried out among comparable populations of medical students, which have also displayed a predominant deep approach to learning (12,7). However, there are some intricate details past questions, unchanged.…”