Overcoming Barriers to Addressing Education Problems With Research Design: A Panel Discussion

Abstract

A plenary panel session at the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success" discussed barriers educators face in imagining, designing, and implementing studies to address educational challenges. This proceedings article presents a general approach to getting started in education research. Four examples of studies from the medical education literature that illustrate a distinct way to approach specific research questions are discussed. The study designs used are applicable to a variety of education research problems in emergency medicine (EM). Potential applications of studies are discussed, as well as effects and lessons learned.

Lung ultrasound training: a systematic review of published literature in clinical lung ultrasound training

“…In the case of evaluating medical education through this set-up, it would be surprising if an increased post-test score was not found. This setup has been discussed and criticized for decades and is today considered obsolete [30, 40, 41]. A single topic curriculum like presented in Krishnan et al, where participants were presented for a 5 min online presentation in detection of pneumothorax with LUS, and assessed theoretical with 20 videos, proves that even a very short theoretical session leads to increased knowledge and pattern recognition.…”

Barriers to conducting research: A survey of trainees in emergency medicine

“…Guidance with these steps would not only ensure the novice researchers produced meaningful and impactful research, but would also overcome the barrier of perceived skill deficiency. Moreover, one well‐designed study may have rippling effects raising further questions and promote advancements in a research career . The ACEM has recently introduced the university pathway, focused towards development of research skills, to satisfy minimum learning requirements for advanced training.…”

“…life, family and other study). A panel discussion at the Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference in 2012 6 highlighted that the first important step in conducting research is designing an important and novel study question. If this is done successfully, the concern about 'wasting time' should be ameliorated.…”

Faculty Development in Medical Education Research

“…21 Goldszmidt et al 22 described a number of efforts not related to advanced education degree programs that may have value in promoting medical education research. The authors conducted focus group sessions in which participants mentioned that collaborating with full-time education researchers, hiring a PhD education researcher, and developing relationships with researchers from departments such as education or psychology would be helpful.…”