A qualitative study of six medical students in a problem-based curriculum:Toward a situated model of self-regulation

The authors followed 6 first-year medical students through their first seme ster in a problem-based learning curriculum to understand how they self-reg ulated their learning. The study, using a situated research strategy, resul ted in a grounded theory built around the central phenomenon of stance. In short, learners illustrated different types of stances-proactive, reactive, retroactive, interactive. and transactive-that served to govern their perc eptions of themselves and the environment, their selection of goals, and th eir adoption of learning strategies. Furthermore, recursive patterns of sta nces were longitudinally described as either evolving or shifting. Findings indicated that more successful students demonstrate an evolving, interacti ve-transactive stance that affected the ways they participated in the learn ing environment and the professional identities they were beginning to deve lop.