A Survey on Study Habits of Medical Students in Shiraz Medical School

Background: Study habits and skills are very important particularly in medical school which is characterized by heavy workload, heavy time commitments, and high stakes assessments. Students’ approach to learning, which includes study habits, has an important impact on both the excellence of the learning and their academic success. The aim of this study was to evaluate the study habits of Shiraz medical students. Methods: In this descriptive cross sectional study Persian version of Approaches to Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) was distributed randomly among 265 Shiraz medical students in May 2010. Total completed questionnaires were 193 (72.83%). data was analyzed using SPSS 18. Results: The results showed that most of the students use deep approach towards their studies (89.4%) and some use strategic approach (72.7%) but score was relatively low for surface approach (69.8%). There was no statistic relationship between gender and deep or surface approach that they adopted but there was statistically positive relationship between gender and strategic approach that they adopted with males good in adopting strategic approach. No statistical relationship was detected between educational level and deep approach but analysis detected a statistically positive relationship between the level of education and both surface and strategic approaches. Non clinical students adopted strategic approach whereas clinical students adopted surface approach towards their studies. No relationship was detected between place of living and approaches that they adopted. Conclusions: Our finding suggests that there is an overlap correlation between learning approaches adopted by students in different situations. Moreover the finding showed that with increase in educational level there is a trend toward surface approach. Therefore, the adoption of factors which foster deep approaches and activities which increase students' interest should be strongly emphasized.