Monday, April 18, 2016

Qualitative Research Methods in Medical Education Workshop on May 25th, 2016






Message to participants:

"Thank you for signing up for the "Qualitative research methods in medical education" workshop at CenMED, NUS. We strongly encourage you to complete the pre-workshop reading and assignment below before the workshop. This will give you background knowledge, and a foundation to build on during the workshop, and enable you to engage in the workshop discussion and interactive activities to a greater degree. The idea is to start to build a theoretical understanding before the workshop, to enable you to use your time in the workshop to clarify and reinforce basic concepts, and to develop further skill in thinking about, evaluating and starting to perform qualitative research.

Your participation in the workshop activities will embody and illustrate many of the ideas and educational principles underlying the flipped classroom practice. Specifically, you will be undertaking approximately 3 hours of preparation at home before the workshop. This will include reading the few recommended articles, reviewing/skimming/going systematically through the eLearning module courtesy of academic team from the Alice Lee Center for Nursing Studies (see section below after the Padlet wall), summarising the take home points from your pre-workshop preparation, and posting this, together with a teaching / education project where you hope to use qualitative research methods, on the workshop Padlet wall below (this is an interactive digital wall, which is on a private space on Padlet.com, and is not searchable on Google - you have been given permission to write, edit and delete your own posts, resize and move this around, as long as you use the same mobile or desktop device; even though this platform works with all mobile and desktop devices, you will probably find using a laptop/workstation or tablet the easiest way to write and edit your posts on this website). 

Please bring along to the workshop the same WiFi enabled mobile device, tablet or laptop that you have used to post on the Padlet wall. This will enable you to continue to refine, and add to your post on the Padlet wall. I have organised the Padlet posts so that the latest entry is always at the top. This will enable you to find your earlier post by scrolling down. You can interact with the Padlet website directly on the blog, or by going to the Padlet link immediately below the embedded Padlet webpage below.

May we also request that you complete the short anonymised Survey Monkey survey embedded on the blog below, before the workshop, to give us an idea of your teaching background and what you hope to get out of the workshop."


Create your own user feedback survey







                               http://padlet.com/dnrgohps/qualMedEdResearch



Pre-reading and pre-workshop assignment:

Qualities of Qualitative Research: Part I (J Grad Med Educ, 2011)

Qualitative Research Part II: Participants, Analysis, and Quality Assurance (J Grad Med Educ, 2012)

Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research: A Synthesis of Recommendations (Academic Medicine, 2014)

(Please read [above] the articles above on qualitative research methods in medical education. Please write a short 250 word maximum personal reaction, and post this on the Padlet wall above, together with a brief description of your teaching experience, current teaching responsibilities, and a short 250 word maximum proposal of how you intend to use qualitative research methods in your teaching setting. You should complete this assignment before you come to the workshop. We will be developing your proposal further during the workshop.

We encourage you to actively engage with the workshop material, including the assignment of posting on the Padlet wall. Working on your assignment is one method to facilitate active learning, with the process of reflecting on the material, and writing down key ideas/your reaction to the material/your own personal take home points/developing a draft proposal or outline of a project giving you a tangible take-away from the workshop. 

Ultimately what one can recall, and implementation ideas one takes away from an educational session is what one has learnt from the session. Individual Padlet posts are one tangible and personal takeaway from the workshop, which can be developed further, be further refined, and accessible for collaboration and feedback.)

Enhancing Research Skills e-Learning Module
(eLearning module courtesy of academic team from the Alice Lee Center for Nursing Studies - To be able to login, participants have to register as a new user first, and then go to the “Qualitative” theme and complete the pre-test.  There are four sessions within this theme and each session takes about 10-15 mins.)


Other online resources:

You might also find the other online resources available using an online search of the following phrase useful "qualitative research methods in medical education".

where you might find the following reference

Review article: medical education research: an overview of methods. (Can J Anaesth, 2012)












Good morning, and welcome to this workshop on Qualitative Research Methods in Medical Education by CenMED, NUS. My name is Poh Suh, and let me introduce the other two faculty for this workshop, Yanika and Shuh Shing.

Thank you for undertaking the pre-workshop reading, SurveyMonkey survey, and pre-workshop assignment (posting on Padlet). All the points I will be making during the workshop, and resources I will be using are displayed on this workshop blog. For those of you who like reviewing key ideas using presentation slides, you might find the link on the bottom of this blog, also here (Google search for "qualitative research methods in medical education SlideShare") helpful to review.

Let's begin with a show of hands of who managed to complete the pre-workshop reading.

Let's have a Q and A discussion of some of the ideas from the pre-reading, which provide background information on Qualitative Research Methods. The discussion points I will be using are on the 1st post on the Padlet wall below.

https://padlet.com/dnrgohps/qualMedEdResearch/wish/108674374



Why are you here?

To become familiar with topic - e.g. able to have a conversation of this topic

To become familiar with qualitative research design and reporting - e.g. able to read/appreciate the literature

To explore qualitative research design - e.g. start to plan and carry out small qualitative research projects, present reports of these projects in-house (within department), at local/regional/international medical education meetings/conferences, publish in peer-reviewed medical education journals, publish in peer-reviewed clinical specialty journals



Familiar examples (you are familiar with some elements of qualitative research, and have been undertaking some form of qualitative research all along!)

Planning a family outing

Running/organising a meeting - preparation before making a key group decision

Running/organising a department - preparation before making a key group decision

How might one translate and transfer these ideas?

to

Large group teaching

Small group teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Postgraduate training

CME, CPD, Lifelong learning and Just in time learning settings



"A good teacher is continuously observant of student learning behaviour, and seeks evidence of student engagement with the learning material and experience, as well as evidence of learning, and also proactively solicits feedback from students and peers to continually improve the learning
experience. Good chefs can be seen circulating amongst the diners, observing their eating behaviour, chatting with and seeking feedback directly from diners, as well as inviting fellow chefs to sample their culinary offerings. As teachers we have an opportunity to do this both in traditional classrooms, as well as online settings, through our own direct observations, as well as with online behavioural and data analytics. Chefs often modify their cooking, and refine this in “real time”. Similarly teachers can modify their teaching, and the learning experience dynamically, in response to the observed behaviour and feedback from learners and peers."

"We feel that there are close parallels between the culinary arts and practices with the teaching and learning practices of medical educators. In this article we explore this culinary analogy as a means to help medical educators think about their educational practices and to develop their scholarship in medical education."

above from
http://www.slideshare.net/dnrgohps/insights-from-the-culinary-arts-and-practices-for-medical-educators
Insights from the culinary arts and practices for medical educators
Poh Sun Goh and John Sandars (2016)





"We propose the need for a specific educational scholarship when using e-learning in medical education. Effective e-learning has additional factors that require specific critical attention, including the design and delivery of e-learning. An important aspect is the recognition that e-learning is a complex intervention, with several interconnecting components that have to be aligned. This alignment requires an essential iterative development process with usability testing. Effectiveness of e-learning in one context may not be fully realised in another context unless there is further consideration of applicability and scalability. We recommend a participatory approach for an educational scholarship for using e-learning in medical education, such as by action research or design-based research."

Above abstract from
Sandars, J and Goh, PS. Is there a need for a specific educational scholarship for using e-learning in medical education? Med Teach. 2016 Apr 19:1-2 [Epub ahead of print]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27093587



Google search for the question "is practice based action research qualitative or quantitative research"
























Case studies

http://practicebasedmededresearch.blogspot.sg/ (2015 symposium)

http://techenhlearning.blogspot.sg/ (2015 symposium and mini-workshop)

http://telat13apmec.blogspot.sg/ (2016 APMEC pre-conference workshop and conference symposium)





















Pre-workshop SurveryMonkey responses: