Teaching conceptions and approaches to teaching of medical school faculty: the difference between how medical school teachers think about teaching and how they say that they do teach.

BACKGROUND: It is often assumed that the way teachers approach their teaching is determined by the way they think about learning. This study explores how teachers of an undergraduate medical programme (UMP) think about learning, how they approach teaching and whether their conceptions of learning relate to their teaching approaches. METHODS: Quantitative data of academic teachers involved in the undergraduate programme in medicine were collected and analysed. We used a questionnaire designed to measure teachers' conceptions of their own learning (COL) and of student learning as well as teachers' approaches to teaching (AT). RESULTS: Teachers of the medical undergraduate programme hold a variety of COL, of how students learn and their AT. No significant correlations were found between teachers' conceptions of learning and their AT. CONCLUSIONS: Although UMP teachers' ideas on learning and teaching are very diverse, some of their conceptions are interrelated. Teachers' ideas on their own learning is sometimes - but not always - related to how they think about student learning. But most importantly, the way UMP teachers think about learning is not automatically converted into the way they approach teaching.