Symbolic access: medical students’ awareness of institutional culture and its influence on learning, a phenomenographic study

Abstract

Background: The discussion of access in medical education has its focus largely on physical and epistemological access, leaving a qualitative gap regarding sociocultural factors which enable access in this context. This study introduces and defines symbolic access, a concept with a specific lens on sociocultural inclusion, and the influence it has on student learning within the South African medical education landscape. Methods: A phenomenographic design was used to explore students’ conceptions of symbolic access and its impact on learning. One-on-one exploratory interviews were conducted with fifteen final year medical students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Interviews were analysed using Sjöström and Dahlgren‘s seven-step phenomenography model. Results: Four categories of description were induced, which described students’ understanding of symbolic access, these were rejection, disregard, invalidation, and actualization. Four dimensions of variation were discovered expressing the diversity of events which informed the collectives’ understanding of the phenomenon. These dimensions were; interactions with educators, peer relationships, educational environment, and race. Categories of description and dimensions of variation formed the Outcome Space, a visual representation of the student experience of symbolic access. The outcome space had a double narrative related to symbolic access; exclusion (major) and actualization (minor). Medical student’s chief experience within the medical community was exclusion, however clinical immersion, meaningful participation, peer-relationships, and clinical skills lessons facilitated community enculturation, and impacted learning. Conclusion: Despite deeply exclusionary experiences throughout their programme, medical students articulated a paradox of both awareness and no awareness of symbolic access. The awareness of symbolic access was predominantly influenced by clinical experiences and clinical immersion during the pre-clinical and clinical years of study. Further, descriptions of valuable learning experiences were connected to clinical events and the involvement with patient care. This study suggests that the actualization of symbolic access and description of meaningful learning experiences are linked. Medical educationalists should design undergraduate curricula with early clinical immersion at the fore and explore symbolic concepts pertaining to access, as they are linked to transformative learning experiences for the medical student.