Changing assessment practice through in situ faculty development.

The aim of this article is to describe the process of an in situ staff development process with the objective to influence change in assessment practice. An in situ training course focusing on writing questions for written examinations, but also including some contextual aspects of assessment practice, was therefore developed and implemented. The anticipated change was measured against Kirkpatrick's four levels for evaluating training programmes. As a whole, the reaction from the participants was positive (Kirkpatrick Level 1), and in a number of instances, learning, which includes changes in attitude, knowledge and skills (Kirkpatrick Level 2) and change in behaviour (Kirkpatrick Level 3), was observed. To conclude, the staff development initiative in the form of in situ assessment training facilitated change resulting in an improvement in assessment practice in the School in a relatively short period of time.

Teaching professionalism: a South African perspective.

BACKGROUND: Incorporating the teaching and assessment of professionalism in an undergraduate medical curriculum is a challenging process. There are two components that require attention: the cognitive and the experiential. This article outlines how the School of Medicine at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa is addressing the teaching and assessment of professionalism. AIMS: To embed teaching and assessment of professionalism in a revised six-year undergraduate medical curriculum. METHOD: This is a descriptive paper of a curriculum process that has stretched over a number of years. The eight principles regarding teaching professionalism provided by Cruess & Cruess (2006) are used to reflect on the current strengths and weaknesses of teaching and assessing professionalism in the UP undergraduate medical curriculum. The cognitive component of the curriculum has been addressed by introducing a series of stage appropriate, contextualized assignments in each year of the curriculum. Faculty committee structures supported the development and implementation of this component. Students' responses to an assignment on the influence of role models provided insight into how the experiential component impacts on their professional development. RESULTS: The teaching and assessment of the cognitive component were relatively easy to put in place. The challenge is to maintain this component. The experiential component appears to be much the same as it was prior to revision. CONCLUSIONS: Our way forward is to expand the teaching and assessment of professionalism in the experiential component. We want to facilitate faculty to develop a charter on professionalism. The principles and commitments of the charter will underlie a white coat ceremony for undergraduates. These principles will also provide guidelines for role models in their supervision of experiential learning and can inform criteria for assessment. An assessment strategy to assess professionalism in the experiential component needs to be developed and implemented.

Medical students' perceptions of their development of `soft skills' Part I : A qualitative research methodology

Background: Following the introduction of a new; integrated; problem-oriented undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1997; a research project was undertaken to study interpersonal skills; professional attitudes; teamwork; ethics and related topics - which have come to be known collectively as `soft skills'. This contribution is the first of two articles on the professional socialisation of medical students and their development of `soft skills'. It describes the particular qualitative methodology developed for; and applied to; the study of soft skills among medical students at UP. Methods: This paper describes the aim of the study; reasons for adopting a qualitative research approach to achieve this aim; the theoretical orientation underpinning the qualitative approach that we considered most suitable; the design; the sampling; the data management and analysis; and the methods that we deployed to ensure the credibility of the findings. Research Design: The aim of the study was to explore the subjective meanings that students attributed to soft skills; as they understood them. These subjective meanings involve the way students interact meaningfully with fellow students; lecturers and other individuals participating in the medical and clinical education programme; and the way they construct shared conceptualisations of soft skills and medical education in their lives and social world. A qualitative approach was considered most appropriate; as this study set out to uncover subjective and diverse meanings that do not necessarily amount to generalisable truths. The particular qualitative strategy or design used was that of an extended case study; or `casing'; within the modernist theoretical orientation of symbolic interactionism. Elements of process evaluation were incorporated into the design to account for the process of curriculum reform within which this study was embedded.We recruited participants for this study from two cohorts of students. The first group; who completed their studies in 2001; had followed the traditional curriculum; while the second group; who completed their programme in 2002; had followed the reformed curriculum. The data collection tools were face-to-face individual interviews; focused group interviews and solicited autobiographical sketches. The utilisation of more than one method or data source enabled triangulation or cross-checking of findings. We followed an inductive reasoning approach; which means that we did not search for data to test any hypotheses that had been formulated prior to commencing the study; but focused instead on building constructs that were grounded in or reflected intimate familiarity with the students' world. Conclusion:The modernist qualitative research approach enabled us to uncover; describe and illuminate the subjective points of view on soft skills as expressed by final-year medical students before and after curriculum reform. More specifically; by carrying out an extended case study we were able to perform a process evaluation of the curriculum reform in terms of soft skills and the professional socialisation of the students. This paper outlines how qualitative research methods enabled us to capture and explore aspects of the inner life (social worlds) of these students. Whether they would be the same; similar or different in another setting are questions for further exploration or research - questions prompted by our study in a manner that illuminates the qualities that may be inherent in these subjective meanings

Medical students' perceptions of their development of 'soft skills' Part II: the development of 'soft skills' through 'guiding and growing'

Background: This paper reports on medical students' views on the ways in which their `soft skills' were developed. It is the result of a study on soft skills among two groups of students before and after curriculum reform at the School of Medicine of the University of Pretoria. One of the aims of the reform was to provide more teaching and learning opportunities for the development of soft skills. Soft skills include professional interpersonal and social skills; communication skills; and professional and ethical attitudes.Methods: As symbolic interactionism was used as the theoretical framework to guide the research; qualitative methods were used to collect the data. A purposive-theoretical sample of 42 final-year medical students from the traditional curriculum and 49 from the reformed curriculum was recruited. Data were collected by means of focus groups; individual in-depth interviews and autobiographical sketches.ResultsThe same categories of comments emerged from the data collected from the study participants from both the traditional and the reformed curriculum. The students ascribed their behaviour related to soft skills to personality and innate features. They had varying opinions on whether soft skills could be taught; but there was as a strong feeling that teaching should focus on principles and guidelines for dealing with difficult situations. They believed that; in the end; they should take responsibility for their own development of soft skills. Most participants felt they could at least grow through exposure to teaching activities and the observation of role models. They also indicated that they had developed their soft skills and constructed their own identity through their interaction with others. Their definition of situations was shaped by their interactions with doctors and educators; fellow students and other health professionals. Interaction with patients was considered the most important. For both groups of students their third year was a watershed; as it is the first year of more intensive patient contact and the beginning of serious learning from interaction with patients. The views on the development of soft skills differed very little between the traditional and reformed curriculum groups; except that students who had followed the reformed curriculum felt more prepared through the increased teaching and training efforts. Further consideration needs to be given to the intention of the changed curriculum compared to the actual effect.The way in which the participants in the study described their development of soft skills could be categorised as a complex interplay between `being' and `becoming'. Instead of using the word `acquisition' of soft skills; `development' seemed to be more appropriate. The metaphor of `guiding' and `growing' also captures the development of these skills better than the terms `teaching' and `learning'. Conclusion: Teaching activities in the clinical years should be adapted with a view to facilitating the students' professional growth. New models for the development of medical educators should be created and institutional barriers should be investigated

Medical Students' Perceptions of their Development of 'Soft Skills' - Part I: A qualitative Research Methodology

Background: Following the introduction of a new; integrated; problem-oriented undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1997; a research project was undertaken to study interpersonal skills; professional attitudes; teamwork; ethics and related topics - which have come to be known collectively as 'soft skills'. This contribution is the first of two articles on the professional socialisation of medical students and their development of 'soft skills'. It describes the particular qualitative methodology developed for; and applied to; the study of soft skills among medical students at UP.Methods: This paper describes the aim of the study; reasons for adopting a qualitative research approach to achieve this aim; the theoretical orientation underpinning the qualitative approach that we considered most suitable; the design; the sampling; the data management and analysis; and the methods that we deployed to ensure the credibility of the findings.Research Design: The aim of the study was to explore the subjective meanings that students attributed to soft skills; as they understood them. These subjective meanings involve the way students interact meaningfully with fellow students; lecturers and other individuals participating in the medical and clinical education programme; and the way they construct shared conceptualisations of soft skills and medical education in their lives and social world. A qualitative approach was considered most appropriate; as this study set out to uncover subjective and diverse meanings that do not necessarily amount to generalisable truths. The particular qualitative strategy or design used was that of an extended case study; or 'casing'; within the modernist theoretical orientation of symbolic interactionism. Elements of process evaluation were incorporated into the design to account for the process of curriculum reform within which this study was embedded. We recruited participants for this study from two cohorts of students. The first group; who completed their studies in 2001; had followed the traditional curriculum; while the second group; who completed their programme in 2002; had followed the reformed curriculum. The data collection tools were face-to-face individual interviews; focused group interviews and solicited autobiographical sketches. The utilisation of more than one method or data source enabled triangulation or cross-checking of findings. We followed an inductive reasoning approach; which means that we did not search for data to test any hypotheses that had been formulated prior to commencing the study; but focused instead on building constructs that were grounded in or reflected intimate familiarity with the students' world.Conclusion: The modernist qualitative research approach enabled us to uncover; describe and illuminate the subjective points of view on soft skills as expressed by final-year medical students before and after curriculum reform. More specifically; by carrying out an extended case study we were able to perform a process evaluation of the curriculum reform in terms of soft skills and the professional socialisation of the students. This paper outlines how qualitative research methods enabled us to capture and explore aspects of the inner life (social worlds) of these students. Whether they would be the same; similar or different in another setting are questions for further exploration or research - questions prompted by our study in a manner that illuminates the qualities that may be inherent in these subjective meanings