Using clinical skills exams to evaluate medical student skills in prevention.

BACKGROUND: In 2006, the Brody School of Medicine Regional Medicine-Public Health Education Center integrated the teaching of prevention into the curriculum for first-, second-, and third-year medical students. PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to report on the use of clinical skills exams (CSEs) in the evaluation of prevention health instruction for the period 2006-2010. METHODS: Two CSEs were employed to measure preventive skills at the end of the third year of medical school. CSE-1 was a woman aged 56 years with knee pain. The outcome measure is the percentage of students asking three or more prevention history items. CSE-2 was a boy, aged 15 years, undergoing a sports physical/preventive screening. The outcome measure is the number of prevention items queried. RESULTS: For CSE-1, the percentage of students who met the outcome measure increased to 83% in 2010 as compared to 62% in both 2009 and 2007. The improvement between 2007 and 2010 was significant with a p=0.0080 (Fisher's exact test). Of the 64 students taking the third-year medical student objective structured clinical examination-2 in June 2009, the greatest number queried the following preventive items: exercise (98%), alcohol misuse (98%), drug use (98%), school and grades (98%), sexual activity (98%), and tobacco use (97%). CONCLUSIONS: By integrating prevention elements into CSE cases, the results are useful for student assessment and may be a powerful influence on curricular design, leading to an increase in prevention content.

Office of Interdisciplinary Health Studies Education, East Carolina university.

The Office of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Education resides organizationally within East Carolina University (ECU), Division of Health Sciences; ECU established this office in 1999. The mission of the office is fivefold: 1. promote the expansion of interdisciplinary training within and between Health Sciences and other health-related programs on campus; 2. promote innovative research opportunities across disciplines, in particular, projects regarding interdisciplinary health sciences education; 3. serve as a clearinghouse for information relative to existing and planned interdisciplinary activities and projects within the Division; 4. collaborate with units, and communities in establishing community partnerships for interdisciplinary rural health training; and 5. identify core curricular content across health-related disciplines, minimizing curricular redundancy while promoting interdisciplinary collaboration.

Interprofessional education assessment and planning instrument for academic institutions.

This article describes the creation, development, and peer review of an instrument for the assessment and improvement of interprofessional health educational programs in public and private health educational institutions nationally and internationally. The self-assessment is constructed with consideration of the following domains: educational venues, educational evaluation, programmatic participation, institutional support, and faculty incentives. The interprofessional education assessment and planning instrument for academic institutions can be a major aide in helping national and international leaders promoting IPE as the method to prepare future health professionals.

Learner-centered characteristics of nurse educators.

The purpose of this study was to describe the learner-centered teaching characteristics of nurse faculty who report using contemporary pedagogy. A secondary analysis of data collected by an international survey of nurse educators regarding pedagogical teaching approaches and strategies was used to answer the research questions. The study sought to: 1) describe characteristics emerging from faculty response, 2) make inferences from faculty responses regarding meaning, and 3) make inferences regarding the importance of the meaning to nursing. A qualitative research design was used to address the research question. Themes that emerged were placed under the concepts of power, role of teacher, responsibility of learner, and philosophy of evaluation guided by Weimer's (2002) conceptual framework of a learner-centered philosophy of teaching. Themes and meaning units derived from the study helped to generate textual and structure statements that represent the characterizations of learner-centered nurse educators.

Descriptive meta-evaluation. Case study of an interdisciplinary curriculum.

This article describes an example of meta-evaluation in an educational setting. The meta-evaluation examined an evaluation of a community-based, interdisciplinary curriculum. The Program Evaluation Standards (PES), divided into the categories of utility, feasibility, propriety, and accuracy, provided a framework for the meta-evaluation. Utility standards address the information needs of intended users. Feasibility refers to the extent to which an evaluation is realistic, prudent, diplomatic, and frugal. Propriety refers to the properness of an evaluation in terms of meeting legal and ethical obligations. Accuracy pertains to the trustworthiness of evaluation data. Use of the PES as a framework for descriptive meta-evaluation of a single case illustrated the breadth of issues involved in curriculum evaluation and their interrelatedness. Furthermore, the PES helped to reveal strengths and weaknesses that served as starting points for further improvement of the evaluation.

Reflections on integrating theories of adult education into a medical school faculty development course.

The purpose of this study was to test a three-day course model for medical school faculty designed to promote self-directed learning, teaching skills, personal awareness and interdisciplinary collegiality. The training program described was conducted three times in our medical school. Fifty-eight faculty from 11 clinical departments have participated in this intensive experience of learning how to teach, based on principles of learner-centered learning and adult education theory. Participants defined their own learning objectives and worked collaboratively in facilitated small groups to develop teaching skills. Reflection groups engaged in discussion on critical incidents of experience as teachers and learners, and promoted awareness regarding personal approaches to teaching. Qualitative and quantitative data showed that the course was effective in: (1) providing an academically and emotionally safe environment for learning; (2) enabling participants to recognize and value learner-centered learning; (3) increasing participant personal awareness, and (4) promoting interdisciplinary collegiality. End-of-course data assessing the following course attributes, using a five-point scale, where 1 was 'not effective' and 5 was 'very effective', showed: (a) exploration of needs: mean 4.20 +/- SD 0.91; (b) interactive sharing of ideas; mean 4.60 +/- SD 0.58; (c) opportunity to receive feedback: mean 4.26 +/- SD 0.80; (d) opportunity to practice new skills; mean 4.11 +/- SD 0.72. In terms of participation in further faculty development, 92% of participants committed themselves to continue the work begun at the course. It was concluded that the faculty development program created a safe, learner-centered environment for participants that promoted both awareness of and commitment to self-directed learning, and facilitated teaching skill development and interdisciplinary collegiality. Our three-day course appears to be highly effective in initiating a long-term faculty development process. Additionally, we conclude that there is a need for longitudinal follow-up to support and expand mastery of these teaching skills.