A study on the awareness and practice of medical education technologies among medical college teachers

Abstract

Background: Globally there is a move to reorient the medical education to suit the needs of the developing nations. Medical Council of India has made it is mandatory that all faculty need to attend Basic course in Medical Education Technologies (MET) to improve teaching effectiveness. In spite of their efforts in this regard many of the faculty is still unaware of this initiative and those who have already attended the course are not effectively practicing it. This study aimed at assessing level of awareness and practice of medical education technologies among the teaching faculty.Methods: Data was collected from the faculty by personal interviews using a validated semi-structured questionnaire and analysed using SPSS.Results: 219 faculty members participated in the study working in 26 departments. Mean age of faculty was 40.98 (SD: 12.36). 57.1% of them were males and 42.9% were females. The level of awareness among study participants about learning process related medical education technologies ranged from 57% (for psychomotor domain) to 74% (for setting up of educational objectives). The awareness and practice of ‘teaching process’ and assessment process related medical education technologies remained low. No statistically significant association was obtained between awareness and practice of SLO, Microteaching, and MiniCEX.Conclusions: Majority of teachers remain untrained in the medical education technologies at the time of the study. Of the non-clinical compared to the clinical stream of teachers, greater proportion of teachers in non-clinical section have been trained. The awareness and practice of ‘medical education technologies’ remain low among the study participants.

Learning technologies: A medium for the transformation of medical education?

“…Academic development that exposes staff to new modes of teaching 61 is designed to provide a hands‐on, authentic, problem‐based learning experience 62 that nurtures a professional identity of teaching 40 and involvement in communities of practice, 63 which are all essential in the successful adoption of learning technologies. The medical education literature aligns with this research and adds that mandatory training in the use of learning technologies is not only ineffective in ensuring attendance but, for those who do attend, it has little impact on changing practice 9 . Attempts to focus on the development of skills related to operating a particular new learning technology 30,51 are important but should be integrated with staff development emphasising pedagogical knowledge and individual motivations, perhaps underpinned by the TPACK framework.…”

“…The medical education literature aligns with this research and adds that mandatory training in the use of learning technologies is not only ineffective in ensuring attendance but, for those who do attend, it has little impact on changing practice. 9 Attempts to focus on the development of skills related to operating a particular new learning technology 30,51 are important but should be integrated with staff development emphasising pedagogical knowledge and individual motivations, perhaps underpinned by the TPACK framework.…”

“…The idea that learning technologies will drive educational transformation assumes that technologies can 'solve' educational issues and that teachers will accept new learning technologies and use them to engage with new pedagogies. These assumptions do not seem to hold up in reality as research has consistently shown that teachers do not readily accept new technologies and, even when they do, technologies are used to support existing teaching practice rather than to exploit new pedagogies 8,9 . This reductionist conceptualisation of learning technologies as a solution fails to acknowledge that medicine, and therefore medical education, operates as a complex adaptive system where even a well‐defined intervention may lead to unexpected outcomes or system‐wide behaviours 10 .…”

“…These assumptions do not seem to hold up in reality as research has consistently shown that teachers do not readily accept new technologies and, even when they do, technologies are used to support existing teaching practice rather than to exploit new pedagogies. 8,9 This reductionist conceptualisation of learning technologies as a solution fails to acknowledge that medicine, and therefore medical education, operates as a complex adaptive system where even a well-defined intervention may lead to unexpected outcomes or system-wide behaviours. 10 A structured appreciation of influences of change in complex adaptive systems is undoubtedly necessary to more effectively implement change in medical education.…”