Beyond Online Course Evaluations: Student-Led Focus Groups for Curricular Feedback

Purpose: Medical student curricular evaluation is both beneficial and required. Most medical schools rely on online questionnaires for evaluations, but these are often overlooked or completed haphazardly. We describe the implementation of focus groups as a supplemental form of curricular assessment and evaluate students’ and faculty members’ attitudes towards this novel approach.

Method: Ten randomly selected students were assigned to eight focus groups regarding three different preclerkship courses. Following the completion of focus groups, interviews were conducted with students who participated in them, course directors who received the focus group reports, and administrators who oversaw the preclerkship curriculum and the implementation of the focus group program. The semi-structured interviews were then analyzed using inductive thematic analysis, with initial codes generated from the data and subsequent interpretation informed by prior literature on feedback relationships and curricular program evaluation.

Results: Interviews were conducted with 17 students, 5 faculty members, and 3 administrators. Participants highlighted key themes related to trust, engagement, collaboration, and the learning environment. Students described the focus groups as a safe space and said they enjoyed thinking critically about improvements. Faculty perceived the thematic content of focus group reports to be comparable to course evaluation summaries from established online forms despite concerns for a smaller sample size.

Conclusions: Focus groups are a novel supplemental tool that can complement existing evaluation mechanisms. Engaging students through focus groups can improve feedback and advance medical school curricula, resulting in a more responsive and adaptive approach to education.