Presentation Caribbean Medical Students’ Engagement and Autonomy in Blended Language Learning more

This study reports on the preliminary findings of a qualitative case study exploring medical students’ engagement and autonomy in a blended Spanish language course in the English-speaking Caribbean. Data come from surveys, e-learning platform student activity reports, and in-depth interviews with volunteering students. The project spans two academic years (2023–2025) and includes responses from over 500 students at a university in Trinidad and Tobago, where a new institutional policy requires all students to complete a credit-bearing foreign language course. Engagement with the online course component is key to investigating student autonomy, as students often lack genuine interest in Spanish. The course is generally perceived negatively among medical students due to heavy core course workloads and the perceived irrelevance of Spanish. Preliminary findings, emerging from an analysis of online activity completion and thematic analysis of open-ended survey questions and interviews, suggest a high level of superficial engagement with online activities. Students who demonstrated deeper engagement had positive prior experiences with Spanish. The main pedagogical implication is the need to better promote learning beyond the classroom to encourage meaningful engagement with online materials.