title: The relationship between medical students' epistemological beliefs and achievement on a clinical performance examination.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study was to explore the relationship between clinical performance examination (CPX) achievement and epistemological beliefs to investigate the potentials of epistemological beliefs in ill-structured medical problem solving tasks.
  
  
  METHODS
  We administered the epistemological beliefs questionnaire (EBQ) to fourth-year medical students and correlated the results with their CPX scores. The EBQ comprised 61 items reflecting five belief systems: certainty of knowledge, source of knowledge, rigidity of learning, ability to learn, and speed of knowledge acquisition. The CPX included scores for history taking, physical examination, and patient-physician interaction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The higher epistemological beliefs group obtained significantly higher scores on the CPX with regard to history taking and patient-physician interaction. The epistemological beliefs scores on certainty of knowledge and source of knowledge were significantly positively correlated with patient-physician interaction. The epistemological beliefs scores for ability to learn were significantly positively correlated with those for history taking, physical examination, and patient-physician interaction.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Students with more sophisticated and advanced epistemological beliefs stances used more comprehensive and varied approaches in the patient-physician interaction. Therefore, educational efforts that encourage discussions pertaining to epistemological views should be considered to improve clinical reasoning and problem-solving competence in the clinic setting.
authors.affiliation: Department of TESOL, Gwangju University, Gwangju, Korea.
authors.forename: Sun-A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Education, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea.
authors.forename: Eun-Kyung
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Office of Education and Research, Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea.
authors.forename: Eui-Ryoung
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Education, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Jong
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Theraphy, Gwangju Health University, Gwangju, Korea.
authors.forename: Deiter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kevin
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003469:Culture; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D008487:Medical History Taking; D010808:Physical Examination; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012577:Schools, Medical; D013337:Students, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Clinical competence; Epistemological beliefs; Medical history taking; Physical examination; Physician-patient relations
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