Efecto de la autoestima de alumnos de medicina chilenos sobre su rendimiento académico en aprendizaje basado en problemas

Introduction: Although the relationship between academic performance and self-esteem has been widely studied in different populations, including medical students, the effect of the intervening variables is often not considered, making it difficult to properly assess this relation. Objectives: To identify predictive capacity of self-esteem on the academic performance of first-year medical students at a course which used Problem-Based Learning method (PBL), considering the effect of demographic and academic variables. Material and Method: 99 medical students were evaluated and its outcomes were analyzed by a sequential multiple linear regression. Results: Self-esteem explains 4% of academic performance in PBL course and its inclusion contributes significantly to the model predictive capacity. However, high school performance is a better predictor. Conclusions: Outcomes show that this kind of analysis is useful to assess complex relations, as well as confirming the relevance of self-esteem as a mediator in learning process.