Applications of the reflective practice questionnaire in medical education

Abstract

BackgroundWe sought to determine whether the Reflective Practice Questionnaire (RPQ) is a reliable measure of reflective capacity and related characteristics in medical students. We also planned to learn how the RPQ could be used in medical education.MethodsThe RPQ is a 40 item self-report questionnaire that includes a multi-faceted approach to measuring reflective capacity. It also includes sub-scales on several other theoretically relevant constructs such as desire for improvement, confidence, stress, and job satisfaction. The reliabilities of reflective capacity and other sub-scales were determined by calculating their Cronbach alpha reliability values. In the present study, the RPQ was answered by 98 graduating fourth-year medical students from an American University, and these RPQ scores were compared with general public and mental health practitioner samples from a prior study using ANOVA and Bonferroni adjusted comparisons.ResultsMedical students reported a higher reflective capacity than the general public sample, but students were statistically indistinguishable from the mental health practitioner sample. For medical students, reflective capacity was associated with features of confidence, stress, and desire for improvement. Job satisfaction was positively associated with confidence in communication with patients, and negatively associated with stress when interacting with patients. A cluster analysis revealed that around 19% of the medical students exhibited a relatively high level of anxiety interacting with patients, 23% were less engaged, 5% were dissatisfied, and 7% expressed a level of over-confidence in their knowledge and skills that was concerning.ConclusionsThe RPQ is a reliable measure of reflective capacity (Chronbach’s alpha value = 0.84) and related characteristics (Cronbach’s alpha values from 0.75 to 0.83) in medical students. The RPQ can be used as part of pre-post evaluations of medical education initiatives, to complement student self-reflection activities in the curriculum, and to identify students who might benefit from targeted intervention.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1481-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Selecting and Performing Service-Learning in a Team-Based Learning Format Fosters Dissonance, Reflective Capacity, Self-Examination, Bias Mitigation, and Compassionate Behavior in Prospective Medical Students

“…Reflections on team service-learning experiences will be accompanied by increases in students’ reflective capacity as measured by a reliable survey of this characteristic [20,21].…”

“…Due to the fact that we wanted to measure whether reflection on service-learning correlated with an increase in students’ reflective capacity, we invited the second cohort of prospective medical students to complete the 40-item Reflective Practice Questionnaire (RPQ) [20,21] prior to an introduction to their medical humanities course in August 2018 and after completion of their team service-learning projects in December 2018. The RPQ is a reliable measure of reflective capacity and related characteristics—desire for improvement, general confidence, confidence communicating with patients/clients, uncertainty, stress interacting with patients/clients, and job satisfaction (see Rogers et al [21] online for the current version of the RPQ). Students in the second cohort also completed the in-house survey of their attitudes toward team-based learning, community service, and implicit biases.…”

Fostering Empathy, Implicit Bias Mitigation, and Compassionate Behavior in a Medical Humanities Course

“…Also consistent with hypothesis 1a, the results of this survey support the conclusion that more compassionate behavior occurred in association with reflections on team service-learning. Self-appraisal and reflection-on-action are components of the RC survey [11,12], and both self-appraisal (r = 0.20, p = 0.05) and reflection-on-action (r = 0.28, p = 0.013) contributed to the increase in RC observed in prospective medical students. Reflection-with-others also increased significantly (r = 0.27, p = 0.016), supporting the notion that interactions with teammates formed an essential dimension of students' personal and professional development owing to reflection on service learning in our course (Hypothesis 1b above).…”

“…To determine whether reflection on service learning correlated with an increase in students' RC, we provided students opportunities to complete the 40-item Reflective Practice Questionnaire (RPQ) [11,12] at the beginning of the Medical Humanities course in August 2019 and after completion of the course in December 2019. Along with RC, the RPQ reliably measures the desire for improvement, general confidence, confidence communicating with patients/clients, uncertainty, stress interacting with patients/clients, and job satisfaction (Cronbach's alpha reliability values range from 0.75 to 0.91 for the subscales among the general population and among a more homogeneous sample of medical students [11,12]; see Rogers et al [12] online for the current version of the RPQ).…”

“…Prospective medical students also expressed positive attitudes toward their teams, team-based learning, community service, and recognizing/mitigating their implicit biases [8]. Similarly, reflections on team service-learning experiences were accompanied by increases in the students' reflective capacity (RC), as measured by a reliable survey of this characteristic [11,12]. Finally, students' RC scores correlated positively with their cognitive empathy scores (a component of compassion) [8].…”