Critical Appraisal of Emergency Medicine Educational Research: The Best Publications of 2015

Abstract

Objective: The objectives were to critically appraise the medical education research literature of 2015 and review the highest-quality quantitative and qualitative examples.Methods: A total of 434 emergency medicine (EM)-related articles were discovered upon a search of ERIC, PsychINFO, PubMED, and SCOPUS. These were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. All were screened by two of the authors using previously published exclusion criteria, and the remaining were appraised by all authors using a previously published scoring system. The highest scoring articles were then reviewed.Results: Sixty-one manuscripts were scored, and 10 quantitative and two qualitative papers were the highest scoring and are reviewed and summarized in this article.Conclusions: This installment in this critical appraisal series reviews 12 of the highest-quality EM-related medical education research manuscripts published in 2015.I n 2012, the Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference called for an increase in high-quality, hypothesis-driven education research.1 The intervening years have seen a growth in education research, as described in prior articles in this series.2-9 Highlighting this trend, beginning in 2017, Academic Emergency Medicine journal devoted an entire separate publication to emergency medicine educational research, Academic Emergency Medicine Education and Training (AEM E&T). 10Prior installments of this series were published in Academic Emergency Medicine Journal, 2-9 using modifications of methodology for medical education literature review as described by the Alliance for Clinical Education for other specialties and based on that used for bench and clinical research. 11,12 In this eighth installment of the annual critical appraisal series, reviewers have critically analyzed and ranked the emergency medicine (EM) education research from 2015. This article will highlight and summarize the most highly rated studies of 2015, which pertain to teaching and education in EM. Of note the focus is on research that advances the science of EM education, not necessarily research that uses education to affect patient care. Current trends in EM education research, as they can be inferred from this review, are summarized and compared to the previous year's trends. It is hoped that this article will serve as a valuable resource for EM educators and researchers invested in educational scholarship. 13 METHODS Article IdentificationA medical librarian reproduced a previously used Boolean search strategy to identify all education research publications relevant to EM education. 2 Medical subject heading (MeSH) and keyword terms, including keyword variations to ensure completeness, were used. MeSH and keywords incorporated the following: emergency medicine and medical education, medical student, residents, continuing medical education, academic medical center and teaching hospital, to search MEDLINE through PubMed. Other databases searched included Scopus, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and PsychInfo. Pu...

Critical Appraisal of Anesthesiology Educational Research for 2017

“…This study is based on a series of critical appraisals conducted over the last 10 years in emergency medicine (EM) with the purpose described as providing a “valuable resource for EM educators and researchers invested in the scholarship of teaching" [4]. Similarly, we hope that this will be the first article in a yearly series that will allow us to track the state of research in medical education in anesthesiology.…”

Critical Appraisal of Emergency Medicine Educational Research: The Best Publications of 2016

“…In 2016, there continued to be a trend toward increasing number of articles that meet our a priori criteria for full review ( n = 75) compared with 2015 ( n = 61) and 2014 ( n = 25) . As the field of medical education continues to grow, we expect that this trend will continue.…”

“…In this ninth installment of the annual critical appraisal of the EM education research, we systematically analyze and rank the best publications of 2016. We used modified previously published criteria for qualitative and quantitative research studies similar to prior installments of this series . We also describe and summarize current trends in medical education research over the past year as they relate to EM learners and educators.…”

Emergency Medicine Education Research Since the 2012 Consensus Conference: How Far Have We Come and What’s Next?

“…External funding has been shown to be a crucial step toward the maturation of successful investigators and increasing the knowledge base complexity of publications . One series of articles evaluating EM education research found that the number of funded studies increased from 16% in 2014 to 20% in 2015, although this declined to 11% in 2016 . We conducted a review of all publications from 2018 and 2019 in AEM Education and Training and found that 34% of original manuscripts had reported some form of funding.…”

“…Additionally, there has been an overall increase in the quality of education research and expectations from EM and other fields . As consumers of research, educators are looking for more rigorous methods and conceptual frameworks in published research .…”