MSE Articles

ABSTRACT

The focus of this paper is the development of a multi-layered teaching and learning partnership between a school of medicine and school of pharmacy, designed to introduce interprofessional teaching and learning in the medical school??bf?s pharmacology course. It features the process of building an alliance between a medical school and school of pharmacy, which includes the students, faculty and administrators of each organization as key participants. The paper emphasizes that the strategies used to move forward with the partnership were key to facilitating effective change, and highlights the benefits of the multi-layered cross-institutional partnership. The authors also highlight what they found most applicable and useful from the organizational change literature in the development of the partnership. This paper provides faculty with an opportunity to recognize challenges and successes for building new and valuable partnerships for their courses and organizations, and an approach to developing partnerships that optimize teaching and learning in the basic sciences.

ABSTRACT

The Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) is a new concept in practical assessment of physiology in our country. It is a modified form of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) but is used for evaluation of pre and paraclinical subjects. Although theoretically known, very few medical colleges have incorporated OSPE as an assessment tool in the curriculum of first year medical students. We wanted to compare the marks obtained in OSPE and the other conventional methods. The OSPE marks showed similarity with clinical examination and were different from marks of other experimental procedures like graph and chart. A similar result was found in two examinations. We conclude that OSPE can replace the existing pattern of clinical examination. To replace others it would require an elaborate and structured OSPE bank. Presently, it can supplement but not replace the conventional methods. Any change must first be thoroughly evaluated before it can uproot a well-defined and time-tested assessment methodology.

ABSTRACT

This paper will report the relationship between course and faculty evaluations for a problem-based learning (PBL) experience in a medical school curriculum. Identifying relationships between students??bf? reflections about the problem-based learning experience and how well facilitators guided the group (e.g., helped identify key learning issues) can answer fundamental questions about the potential of PBL to advance essential skills and knowledge. In 45 PBL groups across the 2001 and 2003 academic years, students completed a facilitator and a PBL course evaluation. The facilitator evaluation included nine questions. Each question used a five-point scale from Poor (1), Fair (2), Somewhat good (3), Good (4) to Excellent (5). The PBL course evaluation included 9 questions on a standard 5-point scale, ranging from Not at All (1); Slightly (2); Somewhat (3); Mostly (4), and Completely (5). Two statistical analyses were conducted to address the research questions. First, a factor analysis was used to explore the organization of underlying factors in the facilitator and course evaluations. Factor analysis can provide evidence of construct validity for both instructional and learning dimensions.Using each factor as a variable, factor scores (mean of the items in each factor) for the facilitation evaluations were used to predict factor scores yielded from the course evaluation. A regression analyses explored the potential for facilitator performance scores (independent) to predict student observations about their own learning (dependent). An analysis of the questions reveals reasonable interpretations of the two factors (Collaboration and Independent Leaning Skills). The results revealed significant relationships between the facilitator scale score and both scale scores for the course evaluations. Overall, these results suggest that the facilitator evaluation reveals a global indication of facilitator performance. Targeting the quality of specific skills, then, may require additional assessment strategies, such as having trained raters evaluate facilitator performance. An analysis of the course evaluation also reveals that students distinguish self-directed learning skills from collaborations skills. The connection between these factors suggests that facilitator performance, although limited, does impact the extent of students learning and development. Failing to recognize the importance of appropriate facilitation skills may ultimately compromise the learning environment.

ABSTRACT

In the spring of 2004, IAMSE sponsored a webcast audioseminar series titled “Evaluation of Student Learning: A Continuum from Classroom to Clerkship”. Six nationally recognized experts in evaluation of student learning presented seminars that described various ways to develop and use evaluation methods in settings generally found across the medical curriculum. Our audience included members of institutional faculty development programs and individual faculty members from many countries across the world. Our webcast series allowed registrants to listen to the presentation in real time while viewing the presenter’s slides on their computer web browser. The presentations were interactive, allowing the audience to ask questions or provide information from their own experiences. Audio recordings of the seminars, accompanied by the slides were archived on the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) website, and are available to registrants who want to review the seminars. Evaluation of student learning proved to be a very popular topic, and the audience numbered well over 100 for each of the six seminars. We urge educators to carefully read the following philosophical and practical approaches to evaluation of student learning. Use these white papers to convince colleagues, Chairs and Deans that there must be a solid evaluation plan for their institution. It is important for educators to measure the return values on education and make them a part of annual reports. Each seminar speaker provided a summary of content and major points of discussion following their presentation. These summaries are reproduced below.

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to address one of the primary reasons that manuscripts are rejected for publication in the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (JIAMSE), poor manuscript writing. One of the primary goals of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) annual meeting is to improve the way we teach medical science students. The information that IAMSE members share in their poster presentations represents cutting-edge medical education research. The impact of these presentations is limited if the results are not disseminated beyond the annual IAMSE meeting to a larger audience. It remains a goal of the JIAMSE Editorial Board to encourage IAMSE members to share their medical education research with the community of medical educators by publishing the results of their work in JIAMSE. The journal is the peer-reviewed, biannual (June and December) electronic journal of IAMSE that is published in three languages (i.e., English, French, and Spanish). JIAMSE publishes multiple types of medical education related contributions, including: original research manuscripts, reviews, editorials, opinion papers, and announcements. Submissions address a wide range of topics that are of interest to IAMSE members, such as the introduction, application, and success of new teaching methods. In this paper, readers will receive practical information on how to strengthen their medical education reports for publication in JIAMSE. Guidelines for each section of a medical education research manuscript will be addressed as well as key elements that JIAMSE editors use when reviewing a paper for publication.

This is already the fourth volume of the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (JIAMSE). I would like to take this opportunity to update you and focus your attention on the current volume of JIAMSE (Volume 14, Number 1), and call your attention to some of the successes that we have enjoyed… Read more »

With the academic year about to begin shortly, it is a fitting time to check the status of online resources that are to be used on an established course resource page. Do the web pages still exist on the Internet, and if they do, do the hyperlinks for the web pages still work? Even if… Read more »

ABSTRACT

Human rights (HR) is important in medicine; violations in HR not only result in health problems but some kinds of HR violations are possible in treatment by medical professionals themselves. Therefore in medical education, awareness of HR, their reflections in the community and in treatment approaches are essential. This article is devoted to HR in medical ethics as a different educational perspective. The pilot study was carried out in our medical ethics course with a class of third year students at Ankara University School of Medicine during Spring 2000 semester. The study focused on the superiority of an interactive education over a classical education in medical ethics through the problems related to HR. The data reflects that role-playing as one of the interactive learning experiences is the best suited to help medical students achieve the curriculum’s educational objectives.

ABSTRACT

Many medical schools have moved towards problem-based learning (PBL). Unfortunately, the use of PBL in many medical schools has not been followed with appropriate changes in evaluation of students. Assessment of PBL needs to focus on the objectives that PBL fosters in conjunction with the educational course objectives. In an effort to appropriately assess PBL sessions, The School of Medicine Tec de Monterrey uses a criterion-based system that includes three checklists: 1) tutor assessment of students, 2) self-assessment, and 3) peer-assessment. Each checklist contains criteria that correspond to the four objectives (rubrics) of PBL: knowledge application, critical thinking, self-directed study and collaboration, and a fifth rubric for professionalism and attitude during the discussion. Course objectives are integrated within each of the rubrics. The three checklists are used for summative and formative purposes in all PBL core courses of the Basic Medical Sciences department and for the Gynecology PBL core clinical course. Although no quantifiable data have been obtained, the use of this criterion-based system has helped establish appropriate standards of performance. Additionally, it has assisted in identifying those students who are having trouble developing critical thinking and decision-making skills and has greatly fostered feedback to students. If PBL assessment is consistent with curricular goals and course learning objectives, validity of assessment is enhanced and subjectivity across instructors’ evaluations can be diminished.

ABSTRACT

Integrated assessments which are aligned with learning objectives and teaching methods may help to reinforce the linkage of the medical sciences with the professional practice of medicine. In the existing discipline-based medicine program at the University of New South Wales, a project-based assessment in pathology was introduced in 1996, which required students to focus on the cost vs. benefit of investigative procedures. Students have performed well in this individualized assessment, which has experiential and reflective components and is highly rated as a learning exercise. In the new integrated medicine program commencing in 2004, students will undertake a series of project-based assessments linking medical sciences to societal aspects of health and disease. Whether undertaking such assessments contributes to a long-term change in clinical behaviour will require follow-up with graduates from our new program

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore and discover classroom management problems encountered by undergraduate science teaching assistants (TAs). Information about TA perceptions of classroom management problems was obtained to better understand how gender, teaching experience, and academic discipline affected their classroom management experiences. Study subjects consisted of 25 TAs in various science departments (e.g. physics, chemistry, and biology) at a large Midwestern University. Sixty percent (n=15) of them were male, and forty percent (n=10) were female. Regarding subjects’ teaching experience with undergraduate level students, twenty percent (n=5) of them possessed three years or more teaching experience, forty percent (n=10) had teaching experience between one and three years, and the other forty percent (n=10) had a teaching experience of one year at the time of the study. An Email survey was used for data collection from 125 graduate TAs in various science departments. TAs responded to ten challenging student behaviors in the classroom that were developed from DiGiulio’s (1995) questionnaire. Results from this study reveal a variance in classroom management problems were primarily due to TA type (United States Teaching Assistants or International Teaching Assistants).

ABSTRACT

Macromedia’s authoring programs Flash and Director have been combined to produce virtual lectures in which animated drawings are synchronized with a lecturer’s remarks. Virtual lectures can be distributed with a verbatim transcript of the lecturer’s remarks. Virtual lectures improve upon live lectures by teaching mainly through visual means, which enhances comprehension and recall. Second, they transform the lecture format from a passive to an active learning process because virtual lectures can be studied in association with textbooks, websites, or the contributions of fellow students. Third, they address potential apprehension by students that material may be missed or misunderstood during a lecture. It is possible that student recognition of convenience, better time management, greater comprehension and improved recall will all ultimately lead to the substitution of many, if not most, live lectures during the preclinical years by virtual lectures.