A follow-up study of medical students' biomedical understanding and clinical reasoning concerning the cardiovascular system.

Novice medical students usually hold initial conceptions concerning medical domains, such as the cardiovascular system, which may contradict scientific explanations and thus hinder learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate which kinds of biomedical representations medical students constructed of the central cardiovascular system in their first and second years of study, and how the quality of these representations was related to the students' success in clinical reasoning. Data for 119 medical students were collected in three phases: in the first year of study before and after a cardiovascular course and a follow-up in the second year of study.

'Ain't nothin' like the real thing'. Motivation and study processes on a work-based project course in information systems design.

Background: Advocates of the project method claim that project-based learning inspires student learning. However, it has been claimed that project-based learning environments demand quite a bit of self-regulation on the part of the learner.

Aims: Consequently, it was tested whether students scoring low in self-regulation of learning experienced 'friction', an incompatibility between student self-regulation and the demands posed by the learning environment.