The Motivational Case as an Integrative Problem-Solving Strategy in Oncology Medical Teaching

ABSTRACT The motivational case, also called a problem situation or case study, is a student-focused learning method that involves problem solving, with the aim of assessing students’ prior knowledge about a presented situation and identifying the learning needs, building new meaning and knowledge, and developing specific self-learning skills. Strategically, it involves the inclusion of social materials (text, audio, printed documents, videos) in the course for analysis and discussion, in order to provide a background context for the theoretical content being taught. It is a very useful tool for teaching basic and preclinical subjects in health care, leading the student through day-to-day situations that they will encounter in their future professional careers. The students’ processes of reflection and discussion of the motivational cases enable a contrast to be made between common sense and academic judgment, which creates motivational movement through the flow of practice and reality to the theoretical content being taught, and the opportunity to generate dilemmas, opinions, comparisons and controversies during the work, mediated by the teacher. Thus, it allows future skills and abilities to be discussed and anticipated, as well as providing new theoretical and practical dimensions, sometimes unforeseen. It is, therefore, an opportunity for the student to create the perspective of practice, while the theoretical content of the subject is being learned. It is a more versatile investigative methodology than PBL (Problem Based Learning) as it can be inserted within a traditional course (Lecture Based Teaching) and is not necessarily the sole teaching strategy. Our aim in this work is to report our experience of the construction, implementation and assessment of two motivational cases designed for fourth year students of the theoretical Oncology course of Botucatu Medical School (Unesp). The motivational cases were built from news media and applied to a class of twenty-seven students, divided into two groups. The first discussion session took place at the start of the course and the second session took place at the end of the course, when the students presented their final work in the form of a seminar. The motivational cases were concluded at the end of the course, through a participatory class on “Cancer Prognosis”, a theme that was common to the two motivational cases. Based on this experience, we conclude that the use of the motivational case as a pedagogical tool gives students a better understanding of the social reality, enabling them to build knowledge networks, and turning them into active subjects of the learning process, without sacrificing the depth and specificity that medical students need to develop.