Applying student- centred approaches to learning in health professional education

INTRODUCTION This chapter endeavours to explore some of the influences that affect the student’s experience of university education. Teachers’ knowledge of student learning – namely, how students learn and the learning environment – can be limited by individual contextual variations (such as the social, cultural, discipline and institutional constraints in meeting students’ and teachers’ needs); however, some understanding of the student cohort is important. Any development of learning materials needs to take into account the learning environment. Th is chapter explores some of the issues that are crucial to students in the health professions. These include the students as potential health professionals, teachers supporting the students, and university environment including the institutional infrastructure.1-3 According to Benson and Samarawickrema,4 in education

Context is a complex, multifaceted, perspective-dependent concept which may include a range of factors … specific to the learning and teaching environment, to disciplinary, institutional … social influences and personal issues affecting students’ lives.(p61)

Students and their environments are thus inextricably interconnected in their learning experience. For health professional students, their own learning needs and the learning environment can infl uence their future career pathway and the requisite need for refl ective practice.