33 Appreciating small-group active learning rank order the statements. We then interpreted the factor by looking at the highest and lowest ranking statements, statements in a factor that significantly deviated from other factors, and finally at items in the middle. At this point, we combined the quantitative and qualitative data, to enrich the factor interpretation and to explain any existing intra-factor discrepancies. Finally, we wrote up a description of each factor and checked its accuracy. Ethics The Ethical Review Board of the Netherlands Association for Medical Education approved the study (dossier number 1062). RESULTS Participant characteristics Fifty-two first-year medical students participated in an interview between September and December. This means that students had between 1 and 3 months experience with the study group meetings. Forty-one participants were female. Their mean age was 18.6 years, with a range of 17–23. Seventy-one percent immediately enrolled in medical school following high school graduation (students without previous studies or gap years). These findings are roughly representative for the first-year medical student population of FMVU. Student profiles We decided on a four-factor solution using our criteria for evaluating factor solutions (see step 5 above). Each factor represents a group of students with similar viewpoints about small-group active learning. Table 2.1 shows the Q-set statements, with the factor arrays (how a prototypical student in a factor would rank order the statements). The four factors explained 52% of the study variance. Forty-seven Q-sorts loaded significantly on one of the factors, one Q-sort was confounded (loaded on more than one factor), and four Q-sorts did not load on any factor (Table 2.2). There were no significant correlations between the factors and the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants. As the factors represent students and not items (like in other factor analysis), we will use the word ‘profile’ instead of factor in the rest of the paper. The four profiles are summarized in Table 2.3. The descriptions below provide the subjective viewpoints of students in the profiles. The information in parentheses (e.g., 50 +4) refers to the specific statement number in the Q-set (between 1 and 54), and its position in the factor array (between -5 and +5). 2
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