Correlation of medical students' situational motivation and performance of non-technical skills during simulation-based emergency training.

BACKGROUND: Non-technical skills (NTS) are an indispensable element of emergency care and need to be prevalent alongside with good technical skills. Though, questions of how to teach (instructional design) and improve NTS effectively remain unresolved. One adjustment screw to enhance performance of NTS, which is detached from instructional designs and learning efforts might be motivation. Theoretical models and observational studies suggest that high levels of intrinsic (situational) motivation result in better performance and better learning. Therefore, this study analyzed the influence of motivation on performance of NTS, by exploring if high levels of intrinsic motivation lead to better performance of NTS in medical students. METHODS: In this prospective cross-sectional cohort study, the authors assessed the correlation of situational motivation and performance of NTS within a cohort of 449 undergraduates in their 1st to 4th year of medical studies, in a total of 101 emergency simulation trainings. Situational motivation was measured with the validated Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS), which was completed by every undergraduate directly before each simulation training. The NTS were evaluated with the Anesthesiology Students´ Non-Technical skills (AS-NTS) rating tool, a validated taxonomy, especially developed to rate NTS of undergraduates. RESULTS: Student situational motivation was weakly correlated with their performance of NTS in simulation-based emergency trainings. CONCLUSION: Although motivation has been emphasized as a determining factor, enhancing performance in different fields and in medicine in particular, in our study, student situational motivation was independent from their performance of NTS in simulation-based emergency trainings (SBET).

The effects of simulation-based education on medical students' motivation.

Objectives: To assess the effects of simulation-based education on medical students' motivation and to compare these effects with the motivational effects of a classical teaching approach (seminar). Methods: In this cross-sectional study, motivational qualities of 164 3rd year medical students, who participated in four mandatory simulation-based training and two seminars of the department of anaesthesiology, were assessed. Comparative analysis was made to determine differences and changes of motivation towards participating in each teaching unit and each teaching format, using a one-way analysis of variance and unpaired t-tests. Results: The different motivational qualities, as well as the computed levels of autonomous and controlled motivation of students towards participating in each of the six teaching units and each teaching format did not differ significantly (F (5, 839) = 0.66, p = 0.657; F (5, 839) = 0.29, p = 0.920; (t (843) = - 0.72, p = 0.471; t (843) = -0.17, p = 0.868). Students` motivation, particularly autonomous motivation, did not enhance after participating in the first SBME, (t (264) = 1.035, p = 0.301), after participating in the second SBME, (t (254) = -0.055, p = 0.956), or after participating in the third training (t (250) = -0.881, p = 0.379). Conclusions: Simulation-based medical education provides a valuable teaching approach but, in this study, this teaching approach did not enhance nor stimulate student motivation. Therefore, simulation-based medical education equals classical teaching approaches regarding student motivation. Further investigations are needed to identify how simulation-based medical education could enhance medical students' motivation.