A qualitative study of six medical students in a problem-based curriculum: Toward a situated model of self-regulation

The authors followed 6 first-year medical students through their first semester in a problem-based learning curriculum to understand how they self-regulated their learning. The study, using a situated research strategy, resulted in a grounded theory built around the central phenomenon of stance. In short, learners illustrated different types of stances - proactive, reactive, retroactive, interactive, and transactive - that served to govern their perceptions of themselves and the environment, their selection of goals, and their adoption of learning strategies. Furthermore, recursive patterns of stances were longitudinally described as either evolving or shifting. Findings indicated that more successful students demonstrate an evolving, interactive-transactive stance that affected the ways they participated in the learning environment and the professional identities they were beginning to develop.