Table 1.
Frequency of process and non-process responses to microanalytic questions: goal setting, strategic planning, and metacognitive monitoring for 71 second-year medical students engaged in a clinical reasoning task, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, academic years 2010–2011 and 2011–2012
| Response category | Goal setting* | Strategic planning* | Metacognitive monitoring* |
|---|---|---|---|
| n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | |
| Task-specific process | 23 (32.4) | 24 (33.8) | 64 (90.1) |
| Identifying symptoms | 16 (69.6)† | 12 (50.0)† | 33 (51.6)† |
| Identifying contextual factors | 2 (8.7)† | 3 (12.5)† | 22 (34.4)† |
| Prioritising relevant symptoms | 3 (13.0)† | 2 (8.3)† | 9 (14.1)† |
| Integrating/synthesising symptoms | 13 (56.5)† | 11 (45.8)† | 38 (59.4)† |
| Comparing/contrasting diagnoses | 2 (8.7)† | 4 (16.7)† | 11 (17.2)† |
| Task-general process | 16 (22.5) | 19 (26.8) | 14 (19.7) |
| Outcome | 13 (18.2) | N/A‡ | 3 (4.2) |
| Self-control | 2 (2.8) | 11 (15.5) | 6 (8.5) |
| Non-task strategies | 6 (8.5) | 11 (15.5) | N/A |
| Perceived ability | N/A | N/A | 2 (2.8) |
| Task difficulty | N/A | N/A | 3 (4.2) |
| Teacher skill | N/A | N/A | 0 |
| Do not know/none‡ | 22 (31) | 1 (1.4) | N/A |
| Other | 4 (5.6) | 18 (25.4) | 2 (2.8) |
N/A = response category was not applicable to the particular microanalytic question.
Column numbers represent the number (n) and percentage (%) of the total sample of 71 students who provided a particular response category. The total percentage in each column is >100% because students’ responses to a given question could be coded to more than one response category to each microanalytic question.
For goal setting, five students provided responses coded into more than one response category; for strategic planning, 8 students provided responses coded into more than one response category; for metacognitive monitoring, 23 students provided responses coded into more than one response category.
Column numbers represent the number (n) of students who provided a response coded as one of the five key strategies within the task-specific process response category. The percentage (%) is calculated by dividing this number by the subset of students who provided a task-specific response. Thus, for goal setting, the denominator is 23; for strategic planning, the denominator is 24; for metacognitive monitoring, the denominator is 64.
A response of ‘do not know/none’ indicates that a do not know/none response was provided without reference to any other response category. If a participant’s response included both a do not know/none and a distinct response category, the do not know/other response was ignored.