Cruser des Anges, Brown Sarah K, Ingram Jessica R, Podawiltz Alan L, Dubin Bruce D, Colston John S, Bulik Robert J
University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
Osteopath Med Prim Care. 2010 Jul 8;4:4. doi: 10.1186/1750-4732-4-4.
A ubiquitous dilemma in medical education continues to be whether and how to integrate research competencies into the predoctoral curriculum. Understanding research concepts is imbedded in the six core competencies for physicians, but predoctoral medical education typically does not explicitly include research education. In an effort to quickly report academic research findings to the field, this is the second in a series of articles reporting the outcomes of a research education initiative at one college of osteopathic medicine. The first article described the competency model and reported baseline performance in applied understanding of targeted research concepts. This second article reports on the learning outcomes from the inaugural year of a course in basic biomedical research concepts.
This course consisted of 24 total hours of classroom lectures augmented with web-based materials using Blackboard Vista, faculty moderated student presentations of research articles, and quizzes. To measure changes in applied understanding of targeted research concepts in the inaugural year of the course, we administered a pretest and a posttest to second year students who took the course and to first year students who took an informatics course in the same academic year.
We analyzed 154 matched pretests and posttests representing 56% of the 273 first and second year students. On average, the first year (53) and second year students (101) did not differ in their mean pretest scores. At posttest the second year students showed significant improvement in their applied understanding of the concepts, whereas the first year students' mean posttest score was lower than their mean pretest score.
This biomedical research course appears to have increased the second year students' applied understanding of the targeted biomedical research concepts. This assessment of learning outcomes has facilitated the quality improvement process for the course, and improved our understanding of how to measure the benefits of research education for medical students. Some of the course content and methods, and the outcome measures may need to be approached differently in the future to more effectively lay the foundation for osteopathic medical students to utilize these concepts in the clinical setting.
医学教育中一个普遍存在的难题仍然是是否以及如何将研究能力融入博士前课程。理解研究概念包含在医生的六项核心能力之中，但博士前医学教育通常并未明确纳入研究教育。为了迅速向该领域报告学术研究成果，本文是一系列文章中的第二篇，这些文章报告了一所整骨医学院的一项研究教育倡议的成果。第一篇文章描述了能力模型，并报告了在对目标研究概念的应用理解方面的基线表现。第二篇文章报告了基础生物医学研究概念课程第一年的学习成果。
本课程总共包括24小时的课堂讲座，并辅以使用Blackboard Vista的网络材料、教师主持的学生研究文章展示以及测验。为了衡量该课程第一年学生在对目标研究概念的应用理解方面的变化，我们对参加该课程的二年级学生以及在同一学年参加信息学课程的一年级学生进行了前测和后测。
我们分析了154对匹配的前测和后测数据，占273名一、二年级学生的56%。平均而言，一年级（53名）和二年级学生（101名）的前测平均分没有差异。在后测中，二年级学生在对概念的应用理解方面有显著提高，而一年级学生的后测平均分低于前测平均分。
这门生物医学研究课程似乎提高了二年级学生对目标生物医学研究概念的应用理解。这种学习成果评估促进了课程的质量改进过程，并增进了我们对如何衡量医学学生研究教育益处的理解。未来可能需要以不同方式处理部分课程内容、方法和结果测量，以便更有效地为整骨医学学生在临床环境中运用这些概念奠定基础。
