Does awarding a medical degree with honours act as a motivator or demotivator to student learning?

Abstract

Objectives: To look at students' support for, and perception of, the effects of awarding a degree with honours.

Design: Questionnaires were given to all medical students from those entering year 1 to those graduating, i.e. six cohorts. We performed quantitative and qualitative analyses on the responses.

Setting: University of Manchester.

Subjects: Medical students.

Results: Of 1618 students, 1290 responded (80%). The majority of students thought that we should have a system to award a degree with honours (968/1290[75%]), but this support was related to a number of variables. When asked to rate their agreement to a series of statements, students from the later years were more likely to disagree that an honours system is a helpful motivator for students to learn (Kruskal-Wallis; P < 0.0001). In contrast, those students with 'points' counting towards an honours degree were more likely to agree that there should be an honours system (chi2[1]=18.7, P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Most students supported the honours system. However, there was less support from students in later years. The qualitative analysis showed a mixture of views. There was a relationship between the probability of being awarding a degree with honours and support of the system.