Refining assessment: Rasch analysis in health professional education and research

Educators want to assess learners using assessment processes that provide valid measures of learner ability. An ideal assessment tool would include items that are appropriate for assessing the target attributes. Ideal assessment results would accurately differentiate learners across the spectrum of ability, determine which learners satisfied the required standard and enable comparison between learner cohorts (e.g., across different years). Similar considerations are relevant to researchers who are designing or revising methods used to gather other kinds of assessment data, such as participant responses to surveys or clinical measurements of performance. Analysing assessment scores using Rasch analysis provides information about scores and the nature of each assessment item, and analysis output guides refinement of assessment. However, few health professional educators have published research that includes Rasch modelling methods. It may be that health professional educators find the language used to describe Rasch analysis to be somewhat impenetrable and that this has, to date, limited engagement in exploring applications for Rasch. In this paper, we lay out an overview of the potential benefits of Rasch analysis in health professional education and research.

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Let’s talk about discourse analysis for health professional education: What, why and how

Focus on Health Professional Education A Multi-Professional Journal ◽

10.11157/fohpe.v21i2.470 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 63-74

Author(s):

Robyn Woodward-Kron

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Health Professional ◽

Professional Education ◽

Genre Theory ◽

Genre Analysis ◽

Health Professional Education ◽

Discursive Practices ◽

Professional Discourse ◽

Professional Educators ◽

Interactional Patterns

Much of healthcare is facilitated through interactive talk and writing: diagnosing, collaboratively making treatment decisions, conducting treatment, coordinating care, handing over care. For junior health professionals, learning the valued patterns of talk and writing—the discursive practices of healthcare—is part of becoming a health professional. Discourse analysis of texts, written and spoken, can make visible to health professional educators what the valued interactional patterns are and how junior members learn the discursive practices through interaction with more senior colleagues. It can also illuminate “troubles” in communication, such as barriers, power imbalances and misalignment. Doing discourse analysis requires an understanding of how texts work and a meaningful, systematic approach to representing and analysing data. This paper introduces genre theory, a form of discourse analysis that distinguishes between text types according to their social purpose and contextual variables, including what the text is about, who is involved and how the text is organised. This paper outlines some principles of genre analysis and practical “how to” guidelines. It also provides suggestions about how findings of genre analysis can inform teaching in health professional education.

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Putting population and global health on the agenda of health professionals

Journal of Public Health Research ◽

10.4081/jphr.2016.709 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robyn Woodward-Kron

Keyword(s):

Health Professional ◽

Professional Education ◽

Health Professionals ◽

Core Curriculum ◽

Health Professional Education ◽

Clinical Placements ◽

Professional Educators ◽

Accreditation Standards ◽

Health And Disease ◽

Systemic Health

Health professional education curricula are notoriously contested and constrained. Diverse epistemological and pedagogical objectives compete for space amid complex schedules of clinical placements, rotations, laboratory work, lectures, and other core curriculum activities. Health professional educators must navigate these constraints as well as address course accreditation standards and the expectations and needs of their communities. Accreditation standards for health professional courses are designed to ensure that graduates are competent to practise safely and effectively; they are also designed to ensure graduates can address health issues in the broader community and populations. Health professional education and training should therefore provide understandings of environmental and social determinants of health and disease still contributing to systemic health inequalities; it should help health professionals appreciate the health and wellbeing needs of indigenous peoples and the social and historical contexts of these health needs. [...]

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Developing an ePortfolio for Health Professional Educators

Handbook of Research on ePortfolios ◽

10.4018/978-1-59140-890-1.ch025 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 273-282 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mary Lawson ◽

Debbie Kiegaldie ◽

Brian Jolly

Keyword(s):

Health Professional ◽

Process Evaluation ◽

Professional Education ◽

Teaching Practice ◽

Implementation Process ◽

First Year ◽

Health Professional Education ◽

Professional Educators ◽

Approach To Teaching ◽

Graduate Certificate

This chapter describes the development and implementation of an ePortfolio to support the Graduate Certificate in Health Professional Education (GCHPE) at Monash University, Australia. The GCHPE addresses the skills and knowledge of teachers working in health, and encourages the development of a professional approach to teaching practice. The ePortfolio was developed primarily to enable the preparation and sharing of reflective tasks and assessment items constructed from the workplace of the course participants, and to facilitate written peer and tutor feedback. The first interprofessional cohort completed the course in 2003. In this chapter, the development process, evaluation methods, and results of the first year of implementation will be summarized. Problems experienced in the development and implementation process are identified along with recommendations for further action.

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Diversity in health professional education scholarship: a document analysis of international author representation in leading journals

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2020-043970 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. e043970

Author(s):

Brittany Buffone ◽

Ilena Djuana ◽

Katherine Yang ◽

Kyle J Wilby ◽

Maguy S El Hajj ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Professional ◽

Professional Education ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Western Europe ◽

English Language ◽

Data Extraction ◽

Document Analysis ◽

Original Research ◽

Health Professional Education ◽

Eligibility Criteria

ObjectivesThe global distribution of health professionals and associated training programmes is wide but prior study has demonstrated reported scholarship of teaching and learning arises from predominantly Western perspectives.DesignWe conducted a document analysis to examine authorship of recent publications to explore current international representation.Data sourcesThe table of contents of seven high-impact English-language health professional education journals between 2008 and 2018 was extracted from Embase.Eligibility criteriaThe journals were selected according to highest aggregate ranking across specific scientific impact indices and stating health professional education in scope; only original research and review articles from these publications were included for analysis.Data extraction and synthesisThe table of contents was extracted and eligible publications screened by independent reviewers who further characterised the geographic affiliations of the publishing research teams and study settings (if applicable).ResultsA total 12 018 titles were screened and 7793 (64.8%) articles included. Most were collaborations (7048, 90.4%) conducted by authors from single geographic regions (5851, 86%). Single-region teams were most often formed from countries in North America (56%), Northern Europe (14%) or Western Europe (10%). Overall lead authorship from Asian, African or South American regions was less than 15%, 5% and 1%, respectively. Geographic representation varied somewhat by journal, but not across time.ConclusionsDiversity in health professional education scholarship, as marked by nation of authors’ professional affiliations, remains low. Under-representation of published research outside Global North regions limits dissemination of novel ideas resulting in unidirectional flow of experiences and a concentrated worldview of teaching and learning.

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