Facilitation of problem finding among first year medical school students undergoing problem-based learning.

Background: Adaptation to problem-based learning (PBL) is a difficult process for high school graduates who are not used to self-directed learning, especially in the freshmen year of medical school. The difficulty includes finding problems from a given case.

Purpose: Evaluate the effect of an intervention to facilitate case-based problem finding among medical school freshmen undergoing a PBL tutorial.

Methods: Medical school freshmen in 2000 (nonintervened group) and 2001 (intervened group) participated in the study. The intervened group received the modified problem-based program by (a) having briefings on the importance of problem finding, (b) encouragement by the tutors in problem finding, and (c) reinforcement using a self-assessment sheet. At the end of the year, the ability of students to extract problems from a short case was evaluated and compared with the nonintervened students.

Results: The intervened group extracted a significantly greater number of problems than the nonintervened group. When extracted problems were categorized, the intervened group was able to generate more questions in a greater number of specified categories.

Conclusions: Interventions to foster problem finding significantly facilitated acquisition of problem extraction skills among young medical students.