Medical students’ reflective capacity and its role in their critical thinking disposition

Abstract

Background Developing reflective capacity and critical thinking is one of the prerequisites of education in health professions, especially medicine. This study aimed to determine the reflective capacity of medical students and its role in their critical thinking disposition. Methods In this cross-sectional descriptive research, conducted in 2022, a total of 240 medical intern students were selected using the convenient sampling method. Data were collected using a reflective capacity questionnaire and critical thinking disposition questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS20. Results The mean reflective capacity was 4.53 ± 0.50, and mean critical thinking disposition was 127.52 ± 10.85. Among the dimensions of reflection, “active self-appraisal (SA)” and “reflective with others (RO)” had the highest and lowest means, respectively. The dimensions of critical thinking disposition with the highest and lowest means were related to innovation and intellectual maturity, respectively. Reflective capacity and its dimensions were found to have a direct and statistically significant relationship with critical thinking disposition and its dimensions. Regression analysis results showed that reflective capacity accounts for 28% of students’ critical thinking disposition. Conclusion The relationship between students’ reflective capacity and their critical thinking disposition has rendered reflection as one of the necessary components of medical education. Thus, determining the learning activities by considering the reflection process and models will be very effective in creating and strengthening critical thinking disposition.

Reflect to interact – fostering medical students’ communication through reflection-focused e-learning

“…Interaction is described as a critical factor in terms of how the material is presented to capture learners’ attention and effectively facilitate student learning transfer [ 45 ]. Thus, interaction can encourage engagement with the learning material and has become one of the most important strategies in e-learning to teach critical thinking [ 46 ], which is associated with reflective capacity [ 47 ]. In addition to the interactive video exercise, we used an open-ended question at the beginning of each module as a second reflection trigger, asking the students how the exercise was associated with the course topic of this module.…”

Further development of the Reflective Practice Questionnaire

“…Studies have been conducted utilising the RPQ with medical students (Bari et al, 2021;Horst et al, 2019;Khoshgoftar & Barkhordari-Sharifabad, 2023a, 2023bLee et al, 2023;Rogers et al, 2019;Schwartz et al, 2020;Van Winkle et al, 2021, 2022, surgeons/physicians (Aitken et al, 2021;Whelehan, Conlon & Ridgway, 2021), nurses (Aitken et al, 2021;Al-Osaimi, 2022;Gabrielsson et al, 2022;Gustafsson et al, 2020; professionals (Aurora, Mawren & Fullam, 2023;Or & Golba, 2023;Parrott et al, 2023), pre-service teachers (Day, Webster & Killen, 2022;Fuertes-Camacho, Dulsat-Ortiz & Alvarez-Canocas, 2021), qualified teachers (Chen & Chen, 2022;Gross, 2020;Moeder-Chandler, 2020), and sport coaches (Da Silva et al, 2022). In these studies the RPQ has been used for a range of purposes, such as assessment of the reliability of the RPQ scales (e.g., Gustafsson et al, 2020), comparison between different sub-groups of participants (e.g., Day, Webster & Killen, 2022), and comparison across different time points to explore student development (e.g., Van Winkle et al, 2021).…”

Further development of the reflective practice questionnaire

“…Studies have been conducted utilising the RPQ with medical students ( Bari et al, 2021 ; Horst et al, 2019 ; Khoshgoftar & Barkhordari-Sharifabad, 2023a , 2023b ; Lee et al, 2023 ; Rogers et al, 2019 ; Schwartz et al, 2020 ; Van Winkle et al, 2021 , 2022 ), surgeons/physicians ( Aitken et al, 2021 ; Whelehan, Conlon & Ridgway, 2021 ), nurses ( Aitken et al, 2021 ; Al-Osaimi, 2022 ; Gabrielsson et al, 2022 ; Gustafsson et al, 2020 ; Khalil & Hashish, 2022 ), psychologists ( Sadusky & Spinks, 2022 ), allied health professionals ( Aurora, Mawren & Fullam, 2023 ; Or & Golba, 2023 ; Parrott et al, 2023 ), pre-service teachers ( Day, Webster & Killen, 2022 ; Fuertes-Camacho, Dulsat-Ortiz & Alvarez-Canocas, 2021 ), qualified teachers ( Chen & Chen, 2022 ; Gross, 2020 ; Moeder-Chandler, 2020 ), and sport coaches ( Da Silva et al, 2022 ). In these studies the RPQ has been used for a range of purposes, such as assessment of the reliability of the RPQ scales ( e.g ., Gustafsson et al, 2020 ), comparison between different sub-groups of participants ( e.g ., Day, Webster & Killen, 2022 ), and comparison across different time points to explore student development ( e.g ., Van Winkle et al, 2021 ).…”