GUNNING FOR THE WIN!
HOW COMPETITIVE CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENTS AND STUDENT
EXPERIENCES PREDICT PRE-MEDS’ COMMITMENT TO HEALTH
RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
KEVIN EAGAN, JUAN GARIBAY,
MICHAEL SOH, SYLVIA HURTADO,
MITCHELL CHANG
University of California, Los Angeles
BACKGROUND
•Call for increasing the number of physicians,
especially from URM groups
• URM <10% of physician workforce
•Greater diversity among medical professionals
requires a better understanding of premedical
student experience and context
• Competitive and collaborative learning environments
•Premedical students less likely to persist in STEM,
despite entering college as more well-prepared
BACKGROUND
•Introductory STEM classrooms present significant
barriers for persistence in premedical studies
• Competitive environment
• Lack of engaging pedagogy
•Premedical student experience
• “Gunners”
• Competition vs. journey of self discovery
• Premedical culture vs. medical school objectives
BACKGROUND
•Gatekeeper debate
•Necessary to discourage ‘unfit’ students
•Competitive nature of gatekeeper debate
disadvantages students whose cultural
backgrounds do not value competition
•Differential effects of competitive classroom
environments
•By gender
•By race
RESEARCH QUESTION
Controlling for students’ prior academic
preparation and co-curricular experiences,
how do premedical students’ experiences in
introductory STEM courses, the learning
environments in these courses, and the
pedagogies students encounter predict the
development of their commitment to health
research and practice?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
• Self-efficacy, outcome expectations, personal goals
• Student interests and goals precede a student’s action to
become a physician
Students’ basic values embedded in outcome
expectations
• Anticipated outcomes of medical career (e.g. status, money,
helping others)
• Hyper-competitive undergraduate STEM learning environment
Self-efficacy
• Occupational interests reflect self-efficacy beliefs
• Culturally determined competition-cooperation norms
METHOD: DATA AND SAMPLE
•Introductory STEM course student surveys in spring 2010
•Pre and post
•3,205 respondents
•Pre-college experiences and academic preparation, educational and
career aspirations, introductory STEM course experiences, and
perceptions of the professors teaching these courses
•Introductory STEM faculty survey
•Cross-sectional
•76 classrooms
•Perceptions of and goals for undergraduate students, the instructional
strategies used in their introductory STEM courses, and opinions about
institutional priorities
•Analytic sample: 1,218 premedical students in 65 classrooms
METHOD: VARIABLES
•Dependent variable: Commitment to health research and
practice
•Making a theoretical contribution to science
•Improving the health of all communities
•Improving the health of minority communities
•Working to find a cure for a health problem
•Alpha = 0.75
•Direct Pretest: Commitment to health research and practice
•Alpha= 0.72
METHOD: VARIABLES AND ANALYSIS
•Independent variables
•Background characteristics and pre-college preparation
•Measures of self-efficacy (e.g., resiliency, competitiveness)
•Classroom experiences (e.g., asked questions, sense of
competition)
•Classroom context (e.g., overall competition, collaboration,
faculty encouraging questions)
•Analysis
•Missing data – expectation maximization
•Hierarchical linear modeling (ICC = 3%)
METHOD: LIMITATIONS
•Limited generalizability
•Short timeframe (one academic term)
•Not a full test of Social Cognitive Career
Theory
•Unobserved co-curricular variables
PREMEDICAL STUDENT
CHARACTERISTICS
• Compared to non-STEM/non-premed and to
STEM, non-premed students, premedical
students:
• Are the most academically prepared (67% earned
A/A- in HS)
• Have the greatest commitment to their major
• Have the greatest commitment to their career
aspiration
• Report the highest ratings of wanting to help those in
difficulty (76%)
• Report the highest level of involvement
• Come from more affluent, most well-educated families
FINDINGS: CLASSROOM CONTEXT
Variable
Direction
of Effect
Sig.
Professors encourage solving real-world,
complex problems
Negative *
Professor perception that there is no such thing
as a question that is too elementary
Positive
*
Overall sense of competition
NS
Overall sense of collaboration
NS
Extent to which faculty graded on a curve
NS
FINDINGS: STUDENT-LEVEL VARIABLES
Variable
Direction
of Effect
Sig.
Participated in pre-college research program
Positive
**
Self-rated ability to overcome hardship
Positive
***
Average sense of collaboration in class
Positive
***
Professor made class difficult enough to be
stimulating
Positive
**
Frequency professor graded on a curve
Positive
*
Professor encouraged collaboration among
students
Positive
*
Students felt respected by peers
Positive
***
Students felt course emphasized applying
concepts to new situations
Positive
***
DISCUSSION
•Premedical students, as a group, not affected by
competitive classrooms as it relates to their commitment
to health research and practice
•Commitment to health research and practice reduced in
classrooms where faculty include complex problemsolving
•Importance of faculty ethic of care – welcoming
questions
DISCUSSION
•Early research exposure as a precursor to a stronger
commitment to health research and practice
•Student resiliency and its connection to collaboration
•Intellectual stimulation and grading on a curve
•Feeling respected and having opportunities to
collaborate
CONCLUSION
•Importance of implementing learning environments
that:
•Increase student interest in health professions AND
•Are consistent with goals of medical field
•Competitive learning environments can:
•Impede development of interpersonal communication skills
•Decrease development of empathy and altruism
•More opportunities for collaboration
•Importance of premedical students learning about
teamwork
•Creating a supportive network
CONTACT INFORMATION
Faculty/Co-PIs:
Sylvia Hurtado
Mitchell Chang
Postdoctoral Scholars:
Kevin Eagan
Josephine Gasiewski
Administrative
Staff:
Dominique
Harrison
Graduate Research Assistants:
Tanya Figueroa
Gina Garcia
Juan Garibay
Felisha Herrera
Bryce Hughes
Cindy Mosqueda
Michael Soh
Papers and reports are available for download from project website:
http://heri.ucla.edu/nih
Project e-mail: herinih@ucla.edu
This study was made possible by the support of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Numbers 1 R01
GMO71968-01 and R01 GMO71968-05, the National Science Foundation, NSF Grant Number 0757076, and the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant 1RC1GM090776-01. This
independent research and the views expressed here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsors.