Distress and attitudes toward the learning environment: Effects of a curriculum innovation

Abstract

The emergence of innovative curricula provides unique opportunities to examine how a modification in the learning environment might influence stress and attitudes among students in medicine. In 1979, the University of New Mexico School of Medicine implemented a problem‐based, community‐oriented, student‐centered curriculum that runs concurrently with the larger traditional track. This longitudinal investigation compares the perceptions of distress and attitudes toward the learning environment of students in these two tracks. The Symptom Questionnaire and the Learning Environment Questionnaire were used to measure distress levels and attitudes toward the learning environment. Students completed these instruments at orientation (first semester) and during the second, third, and fourth semesters of the first 2 years of medical school. The innovative‐track students’ perceptions of distress were significantly lower during the first 2 years of medical school than those of the traditional‐track students. Their expectations and perceptions of the learning environment were more positive, and they found their curriculum more meaningful and flexible than did traditional‐track students. These findings suggest that a student‐centered, problem‐based approach may more effectively help students handle the stress associated with mastering a large body of information and coping with distressing situations such as those encountered by the practicing physician.