The Self-directed Learning Readiness Of Postgraduates Of Clinical Medicine

Self-directed learning is an important area in the research of life-long learningand is essential to building a learning-oriented society. Chinese studies on the subjectare mostly reviews and translations of foreign literature, therefore they lackexperimental studies suited to Chinese conditions. The article takes postgraduates ofclinical medicine as subjects, and bears two aims: first, examine the differences oftheir self-directed learning readiness(SDLR) across grades and across gender; second,explore the relationship between their personality, values and their SDLR. For the firstpurpose, researchers administered the SDLRS as revised by Taiwan scholars on124clinical postgraduates; for the second purpose, researchers sent an self-designedopen-end questionnaire and the NEO-FFI-R to the subjects through email, and got12responses on the questionnaire and10on the NEO-FFI-R. Results show that:(1) Subjects demonstrate significant differences in their SDLR scores across schoolgrades. Grade1students scored significantly higher than their Grade2counterparts on the total score, the “openness to learning opportunities”,“selfconcept as an effective learner”，“initiative and independence inlearning”,“acceptance of responsibility for one’s own Learning”,“love forlearning”, and “positive and optimistic attitude towards the future”.(2) Subjects demonstrated no significant differences across gender.(3) Results from the open-end questionnaire show that, high scorers on SDLRSutilize multiple sources in setting their learning targets, put emphasis on theprocess of learning, and are unwavering in their convictions of learning. Whilelow scores tend to use single source in setting their learning targets, are moreinterested in completing the tasks, focus more on the results of learning, and arewavering in their convictions of learning, meaning that they are more subjected toexternal influences.(4) Results from the NEO-FFI-R revealed a significant positive correlation betweenthe SDLR and the “extraversion” and “openness” traits.