Making more of it! Medical students' motives for voluntarily keeping an extended portfolio.
BACKGROUND
Although medical students' use of portfolios has been studied from many angles, little is known about their motivations.


OBJECTIVE
This article explores medical students' motives for voluntarily compiling a learning portfolio that widely exceeded the assignments.


METHODS
Content analysis was performed on 22 (8%; n = 22/269) extensive portfolios, followed by a semi-structured interview with 11 medical students. Building on the theoretical work of Simons et al. (2004), interpretative analysis was used to reconstruct and understand the medical students' motives for the effort they put into the portfolios.


RESULTS
Compiling an elaborate portfolio is mainly instigated by a personal instrumentality (internally regulated instrumental motivation). These medical students reflected on what they considered important and useful. The portfolio was a tool to achieve self-set goals, yet the specific goals turned out to be very different among the students, reflecting their particular needs and experiences during clerkship.


CONCLUSIONS
Motivation theory shows that students who are internally regulated use more deep-level learning strategies and perform better. Internally regulated motivation mainly occurs when students use the portfolio to achieve their self-set goals. The formal portfolio assignments, enforced by the medical school, were more related with externally regulated motivation.
Deketelaere
Ann
A
Faculty of Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. ann.deketelaere@med.kuleuven.be
Kelchtermans
Geert
G
Druine
Nathalie
N
Vandermeersch
Evelyn
E
Struyf
Elke
E
De Leyn
Paul
P
D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D018794:Problem-Based Learning / Q000379:methods*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*