A mixed method evaluation of cooperative learning using jigsaw classroom model in clinical pharmacology course

Purpose To evaluate use of cooperative learning using jigsaw classroom model in clinical pharmacology course for undergraduate university students. Methods A sequential mixed method study design was used. Jigsaw learning was used for teaching selected topics in clinical pharmacology course in addition to traditional lectures used to conduct the remaining topics. At the end of the course, students completed the Jigsaw learning assessment instrument that measured attitude, knowledge, skills and satisfaction. In-depth interviews were conducted to explore their experiences. Test scores of teaching content taught by Jigsaw learning was compared to the content delivered by traditional lectures. Results Lowest mean score depicting strongly positive response were observed for survey item-3 (1.9±0.98), item-13 (1.9±0.88) and item-19 (1.8±0.86) within the subscales measuring attitude, skills and satisfaction respectively. Difference between the test performance in course content delivered by jigsaw classroom technique compared to traditional lectures was statistically significant (p<0.001). Difference between mean responses of high and low test scoring students was significant for survey item-4 (p=0.04), item-8 (p=0.001), item-11, 12 (p=0.01, 0.02) and item-16 (p=0.03). Conclusion Jigsaw classroom model had positive effects on the attitude, knowledge, skills, satisfaction and test performance of students in clinical pharmacology course.

Where There’s Smoke: Validating a Nonproprietary Single-Item Burnout-Impacting-Safety Scale

This study aimed to assess the utility of a single survey item to predict the impact of burnout on safety and quality of healthcare providers as perceived by their colleagues. The primary objective is to determine if the item predicts the frequency of patient safety event reports within certain clinical departments. The secondary objective will be to determine if there is an acceptable cutoff score for the item which predicts low versus high numbers of safety events reported by healthcare providers in each clinical department. Participants were 424 healthcare providers in an academic medical center in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The item was designed to assess for the perception of the impact of burnout on work in terms of quality or safety using a 5-point Likert scale. Data from a patient safety event reporting system was accessed for the year of survey completion (2017). A negative binomial regression was used to assess the ability of the item to predict reported patient safety event reports. The item was found to significantly predict objective safety event data. Sensitivity and specificity, as well as receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses, were conducted to determine appropriateness of cutoff scores to identify low- and high-risk clinical departments. The item was found to demonstrate adequate sensitivity (82%) using a cutoff score of 4 on the survey item. However, the area under the curves (AUCs) which assess diagnostic accuracy fell in the poor range. These results suggest that healthcare administrators could deploy this single item as a brief pulse or screener of teams of individuals who are within a work unit and use a cutoff score of 4 as a means to assess for hot spots where healthcare provider burnout may be putting patients at high risk in terms of safety.

“Can Virtue Be Taught?”: A Content Analysis of Medical Students’ Opinions of the Professional and Ethical Challenges to their Professional Identity Formation

Background: Efforts have begun to characterize the ethical and professional issues encountered by medical students in their clinical years. By applying previously identified taxonomies to a national sample of medical students, this study seeks to develop generalizable insights that can inform professional identity formation across various clerkships and medical institutions.Methods: In a national survey of medical students, participants answered an open-ended survey item that asked them to describe a clinical experience involving an ethical or professional issue. We conducted a content analysis with these responses using the Kaldjian taxonomy of ethical and professionalism themes in medical education through an iterative, consensus-building process. Noting the emerging virtues-based approach to ethics and professionalism, we also reexamined the data using a taxonomy of virtues.Results: The response rate to this survey item was 144 out of 499 eligible respondents (28.9%). All 144 responses were successfully coded under one or more themes in the original taxonomy of ethical and professional issues, resulting in a total of 173 coded responses. Professional Duties was the most frequently coded theme (29.2%), followed by Communication (26.4%), Quality of Care (18.8%), Student-specific Issues of Moral Distress (16.7%), Decisions Regarding Treatment (16.0%), and Justice (13.2%). In the virtues taxonomy, 180 total responses were coded from the 144 original responses, and the most frequent virtue coded was Wisdom (23.6%), followed by Respectfulness (20.1%) and Compassion or Empathy (13.9%).Conclusions: Originally developed from students’ clinical experiences in one institution, the Kaldjian taxonomy appears to serve as a useful analytical framework for categorizing a variety of clinical experiences faced by a national sample of medical students. This study also supports the development of virtue-based programs that focus on cultivating the virtue of wisdom in the practice of medicine.

“Can virtue be taught?”: a content analysis of medical students’ opinions of the professional and ethical challenges to their professional identity formation

Background Efforts have begun to characterize the ethical and professional issues encountered by medical students in their clinical years. By applying previously identified taxonomies to a national sample of medical students, this study seeks to develop generalizable insights that can inform professional identity formation across various clerkships and medical institutions. Methods In a national survey of medical students, participants answered an open-ended survey item that asked them to describe a clinical experience involving an ethical or professional issue. We conducted a content analysis with these responses using the Kaldjian taxonomy of ethical and professionalism themes in medical education through an iterative, consensus-building process. Noting the emerging virtues-based approach to ethics and professionalism, we also reexamined the data using a taxonomy of virtues. Results The response rate to this survey item was 144 out of 499 eligible respondents (28.9%). All 144 responses were successfully coded under one or more themes in the original taxonomy of ethical and professional issues, resulting in a total of 173 coded responses. Professional duties was the most frequently coded theme (29.2%), followed by Communication (26.4%), Quality of care (18.8%), Student-specific issues of moral distress (16.7%), Decisions regarding treatment (16.0%), and Justice (13.2%). In the virtues taxonomy, 180 total responses were coded from the 144 original responses, and the most frequent virtue coded was Wisdom (23.6%), followed by Respectfulness (20.1%) and Compassion or Empathy (13.9%). Conclusions Originally developed from students’ clinical experiences in one institution, the Kaldjian taxonomy appears to serve as a useful analytical framework for categorizing a variety of clinical experiences faced by a national sample of medical students. This study also supports the development of virtue-based programs that focus on cultivating the virtue of wisdom in the practice of medicine.

Do local circumstances affect attitudes towards local social policies? Exploring the role of economic, political and demographic conditions

PurposeThis article aims to explore whether and how economic, political and demographic municipal conditions shape citizens' attitudes regarding decentralised social policies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed the 2018 wave of the Dutch Local Election Studies, which includes a novel survey item asking respondents whether they prefer local social policies to be primarily: (1) protection-based, (2) cohesion-building or (3) activation-based. The authors appended context indicators to that survey and performed multilevel logistic regression analyses (1,913 respondents nested in 336 municipalities).FindingsAt the individual level, these preferences are affected by gender, age, income, education and political inclination, as expected. However, preferences towards local social policies are not shaped by local economic, demographic or political conditions. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research.Originality/valueBy using unique data, including a newly developed survey item, this study is the first to explore whether and how municipal conditions shape preferences regarding local welfare. Understanding those preferences is increasingly important as many Western European countries have decentralised swathes of social policies from the national to the local level in recent decades.