One of SDT’s faculty, Dr. Rashmi Kusurkar, was recently awarded the “Best Thesis Prize 2014” by the Dutch Medical Education Association (NVMO).  Her thesis, entitled “Motivation in Medical Students,” examines medical students’ motivation, in particular the importance of quality of motivation and the factors influencing their motivation.  This prize is awarded every two years by NVMO for all theses in medical education in the Netherlands and Belgium.  The criteria for judgement were: quality of the work; number of publications and citations; impact of the work for further research; a strong theoretical foundation for the work; and applications of the work in educational training and practice. Moreover the jury was of the opinion that this thesis put Self-determination Theory on the map of medical education.

Dr. Kusurkar is an Assistant Professor and Head of Research in Education at VUmc School of Medical Sciences in Amsterdam.  To view more of Dr. Kusurkar’s work, click here.