Domain-Specific Learning Among Medical Students

The aim of this study was to investigate undergraduate medical student's domain-specific learning. Method: The research tool was a structured essay question formulated to assess factual and affective knowledge and application and synthesis of knowledge. The question was administered to 151 students.

Mean score on the recall question was significantly higher than the other two domains. Total scores of female students were significantly higher than male students (P<0.05). Gender-wise difference in scores was not significant in any specific domain area. There was no significant relationship between factual knowledge and total scores. However, there was a significant linear relationship between total scores and the two areas of affective knowledge (r=0.78) and application and synthesis of knowledge (r=0.6). Findings indicate that affective knowledge and application of knowledge are closely related to overall acquisition of knowledge (P<0.0005).

Teaching and assessment in higher-order knowledge domains and affective knowledge needs to be developed. Questions dealing with affective knowledge and testing higher-order cognitive abilities are more discriminatory than questions testing at the recall level.