Assessing medical students' attitudes towards learning communication skills : which components of attitudes do we measure?
Anvik, Tor; Gude, Tore; Bærheim, Anders; Risberg, Terje; Fasmer, Ole B.; Hjortdahl, Per; Holen, Are; Vaglum, PerAbstract
Background: The Communication Skills Attitudes Scale (CSAS) created by Rees, Sheard and
Davies and published in 2002 has been a widely used instrument for measuring medical students'
attitudes towards learning communication skills. Earlier studies have shown that the CSAS mainly
tests two dimensions of attitudes towards communication; positive attitudes (PAS) and negative
attitudes (NAS). The objectives of our study are to explore the attitudes of Norwegian medical
students towards learning communication skills, and to compare our findings with reports from
Methods: The CSAS questionnaire was mailed simultaneously to all students (n = 3055) of the
four medical schools in Norway in the spring of 2003. Response from 1833 students (60.0%) were
analysed by use of SPSS ver.12.
Results: A Principal component analysis yielded findings that differ in many respects from those of
earlier papers. We found the CSAS to measure three factors. The first factor describes students'
feelings about the way communication skills are taught, whereas the second factor describes more
fundamental attitudes and values connected to the importance of having communication skills for
doctors. The third factor explores whether students feel that good communication skills may help
them respecting patients and colleagues.
Conclusion: Our findings indicate that in this sample the CSAS measures broader aspects of
attitudes towards learning communication skills than the formerly described two-factor model with
PAS and NAS. This may turn out to be helpful for monitoring the effect of different teaching
strategies on students' attitudes during medical school.
BMC Medical Education 7(2007) article no 4The following license file are associated with this item: