Virginia Research Day 2021

SEEKING AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT MAKES SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS SUCCESSFUL Noorunnehar Qureshi (OMS-II ) , Dr. Scott Severance

Introduction There are clear prerequisites and high standards for medical school admission. Less clear are the factors that lead to success in medical school. If all matriculating students have met the prerequisites and the standards, why do some succeed when others do not? Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine (LUCOM) offers the opportunity for students who have failed an academic year to repeat the entire year on a case-by-case basis. This study seeks to identify transformations that began during his or her time away from medical school and to find evidence for strategies that were successfully implemented by repeating students during their repeat year. Due to the high- pressure circumstances associated with medical school, it is thought that successful practices will be ascertained best by studying students who have repeated or who are currently repeating a year at LUCOM. It is predicted that, while significant changes would have been made in academic practices, major differences in non-academic habits will contribute more to the success of repeating students. Methods Several areas that may affect a student’s performance in the repeat year were identified at the beginning of the study. The study was conducted using three surveys: the first assessing a student’s habits during their failed year, the second assessing a student’s choices while they were away from LUCOM, and the third assessing a student’s practices during their repeat year. The first and third surveys included questions about the student’s family background, education, study habits, social skills, mental health, and resilience. The second survey focused on any changes and hardships the students faced while away from LUCOM.

Methods (contd.) Additionally, participants were asked open-ended questions so they could expand upon any information that was not addressed in the surveys. The surveys were designed to compare the experience, study and life habits of the medical students between their repeat and failed years. Some sample questions are below. • If you are willing, please used the space to share what you did during your time away from LUCOM that was essential to making your leave profitable. • How many hours of sleep did you plan on getting each night? • Did you find it harder to handle non-academic responsibilities or academic responsibilities? These surveys were distributed to students from LUCOM who had failed either their first or second year. Thirty-eight students, ranging from OMS-I to first-year residents, who had either successfully repeated a year or were still repeating their repeat year were invited to participate. Results While responses are still being received, the initial data suggests that there are significant contributions of non- academic practices to the students’ success during their repeat year.  In both the first time through and during the repeat year, students identified handling non-academic responsibilities as their major difficulty.  On average, students slept two hours more during the successful repeat year compared to the failed year.  More students made schedules, plans for success, and plans for keeping active during their repeat year.  Students, on average, engaged in physical activity several more times a week during the repeat year.

Conclusions Seemingly, there are more aspects to success than simply study habits. The results reflect that students tried less study methods but experienced greater success during their repeat year. Additionally, students seemed to modify more non-academic aspects in their repeat year. Repeating a year also meant that students had to integrate into a new class, which presents a unique difficulty. Most students identified that they felt alienated and felt anxiety about the repeat year and new class. Further studies will help elucidate strategies to help the repeating students integrate more successfully into their new class. Once complete, we anticipate that the results of this study will be used to help encourage and improve the success of students (and not just repeating students) at LUCOM and at other medical schools. References Johnson JC, Degenhardt BF, Smith CK, Wolf TM, Peterson DF. Tool for Predicting Medical Student Burnout From Sustained Stress Levels: Factor Analysis of the Medical Education Hassles Scale-R. J Am Osteopath Assoc 2018;118(3):170–180. into their study routines during their repeat year. Students also said that the study groups were successful since they were structured and often had rules about participation. • The students also spent fewer hours studying and used fewer study methods. Results (contd.) Though most of the data identifies non-academic changes the students made, students made some significant academic changes during the repeat year. • Over half of the students incorporated study groups

This study is conducted with LU IRB approval (Protocol # FY 19-20-42).

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