VIA workshop study finds moderate, stable strengths alignment in medical students

A Values in Action workshop and mentoring program for pre-clinical medical students was associated with moderate and relatively stable self-reported alignment between students’ actions and their top five character strengths, according to a single-institution study. At the end of first year, the mean alignment score was 3.58 on a Likert scale, compared with 3.42 at the end of second year. A paired analysis found no statistically significant change over time, so the findings do not show that the intervention increased strengths alignment.

Researchers evaluated the program with first-year medical students through the end of their second pre-clinical year. Before orientation, incoming students completed the Values in Action, or VIA, Top 5 Strengths questionnaire and received individualized reports. A psychiatrist-facilitated 90-minute workshop then introduced the positive-psychology-based framework and prompted small-group discussions within longitudinal LIFE-community mentoring groups about recognizing and applying identified strengths.

The program continued beyond the workshop through a structured online discussion board at two months and individual coaching meetings with faculty mentors. At the end of first year in 2023, 161 of 186 students completed the survey, a response rate of 86.6%. At the end of second year in 2024, 138 of 171 students responded, a rate of 80.7%.

Respondents with complete Likert-scale data were included in the quantitative analyses. Most students reported at least moderate alignment between their behavior and their five highest VIA strengths at the end of first year. The mean score of 3.58 had a standard deviation of 0.79.

The second-year mean was 3.42, with a standard deviation of 0.92. Among students whose responses could be linked across the two assessment points, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed no statistically significant difference over time, with p = .581. These observations describe stability in students’ ratings rather than a measured improvement produced by the program.

The design cannot establish that the workshop caused students to act more consistently with their strengths. It included only one institution, had no randomized concurrent control group and relied on self-reported alignment as its central outcome. The findings therefore offer a focused description of students’ experiences across successive pre-clinical years rather than definitive evidence of educational or clinical benefit.

Exploratory comparisons with the immediately preceding class produced mixed well-being results. On a validated single-item burnout measure derived from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, intervention-cohort students reported higher scores than students in the prior non-intervention cohort: 2.52 versus 1.85. The Mann-Whitney U test yielded p < .001.

This difference does not indicate a burnout benefit from the intervention, and the non-randomized comparison cannot establish why the cohorts differed or whether the program caused the higher score. Resilience scores were modestly higher in the intervention cohort, although the difference did not reach the conventional threshold for statistical significance. Mean Brief Resilience Scale scores were 3.57 for the intervention cohort and 3.44 for the preceding class, with a Welch test p-value of .060.

The proportion classified as having low resilience was 10.8% in the intervention cohort and 18.0% in the earlier cohort. The report described this difference as falling short of conventional statistical significance, so the lower proportion should not be presented as a demonstrated effect of the program. Taken together, the results indicate that strengths alignment, burnout and resilience should not be assumed to move together.

Because burnout, resilience and strengths alignment capture related but distinct dimensions of learner well-being, the study supports evaluating such interventions with multiple measures rather than treating a single score as a complete indicator of success.

Subject of Research: Evaluation of a VIA strengths workshop and longitudinal mentoring curriculum for pre-clinical medical students

Article Title: Feasibility of integrating the VIA survey into medical education: a strengths workshop and longitudinal mentoring curriculum

Article References: Philipsheck, A. P., Sheperd, F., Magner, K., & Hayton, A. (2026). Feasibility of integrating the VIA survey into medical education: a strengths workshop and longitudinal mentoring curriculum. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-026-10112-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-026-10112-1

Keywords: VIA strengths, medical students, medical education, student well-being, burnout, resilience, longitudinal mentoring, positive psychology, curriculum evaluation, strengths alignment, Feasibility, integrating