Benefiting from clinical experience: the influence of learning style and clinical experience on performance in an undergraduate objective structured clinical examination

Objective To assess the relationship between clinical experience, learning style and performance in an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE ) in medical students at the end of their first clinical year. Design Prospective study of undergraduate students taking an OSCE examinati on at the end of their first clinical year. Subjects 194 undergraduate medical students (95 male). Main Outcome Measures Performance in the OSCE examination, the Entwhistle L earning Style Inventory(1) and a composite self-reported score of clinical activity during the students first clinical year. Results Performance in the OSCE examination was related to well-organized s tudy methods but not to clinical experience. A significant relationship bet ween clinical experience and organized deep-learning styles suggests that k nowledge gained from clinical experience is related to learning style. Conclusions The relationship between clinical experience and student perfor mance is complex. Well-organized and strategic learning styles appear to in fluence the benefits of increased clinical exposure. Further work is requir ed to elucidate the most beneficial aspects of clinical teaching.