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Evaluating process and outcome in the education of general practitioners

I set out to develop methodologies linking the educational processes adopted by General Practitioner trainers to outcomes, in terms of quality performance by their learners in later life as doctors. Evidence about educational process and about quality of practice must be collected and analysed in a format that takes full account of the judgements to be made for formative and summative assessment. This work iterates between considerations of evidence and judgements The first of three phases of research established a framework of categories and dimensions by which to describe educational behaviours of GP Trainers. This involved interviewing trained practitioners to find what had been of lasting value from training. The categories deriving from a Grounded Theoretical approach have proved useful in practice and have been incorporated into training assessments. Second Phase Research involved refining data collection methods for assessing prevalent educational behaviours in training practices. The process by which judgements are made about training was analysed and developed in the light of research findings, which support a trend towards self-assessment by trainers. The complexity of evidence collection is such that even experienced visiting teams struggled to construct meaningful aggregations across several categories in the course of a brief visit. Their limited data best serves to validate the self-assessments of trainers, carried out over an extended period of training, and involving potentially beneficial reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Finally, 31General Practitioners engaged in a pilot study of Insight 360® assessments of quality practice. Their self-assessments were compared against 331 patient assessments and 237 colleague perceptions. Literature review and preliminary experiments led to the conclusion that Multilevel Modelling (MLM) techniques are best suited to such data analysis. Even with small numbers, valid findings emerged around gender influences on self-perception, reinforcing the conclusion that MLM is needed if we are to relate complex data around quality of practice to the level of prior educational experience. .. Using the framework developed in this project, trainers can now be encouraged to examine their prevalent educational behaviours and record the evidence for formative and summative assessment. This work gives confidence that accumulated 3600 assessments of practitioners may in future be analysed using MLM techniques to shed light on different quality outcomes of varying educational processes

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:289128
Date January 2003
CreatorsPeile, Edward Basil
PublisherOxford Brookes University
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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