a School of Primary and Allied Health Care , Monash University , Melbourne , Australia.
b Society for Cost and Value in Health Professions Education.
Med Teach. 2018 Dec;40(12):1221-1230. doi: 10.1080/0142159X.2017.1410123. Epub 2017 Dec 7.
Student failure creates additional economic costs. Knowing the cost of failure helps to frame its economic burden relative to other educational issues, providing an evidence-base to guide priority setting and allocation of resources. The Ingredients Method is a cost-analysis approach which has been previously applied to health professions education research. In this study, the Ingredients Method is introduced, and applied to a case study, investigating the cost of pre-clinical student failure.
The four step Ingredients Method was introduced and applied: (1) identify and specify resource items, (2) measure volume of resources in natural units, (3) assign monetary prices to resource items, and (4) analyze and report costs. Calculations were based on a physiotherapy program at an Australian university.
The cost of failure was £5991 per failing student, distributed across students (70%), the government (21%), and the university (8%). If the cost of failure and attrition is distributed among the remaining continuing cohort, the cost per continuing student educated increases from £9923 to £11,391 per semester.
The economics of health professions education is complex. Researchers should consider both accuracy and feasibility in their costing approach, toward the goal of better informing cost-conscious decision-making.
学生失败会带来额外的经济成本。了解失败的成本有助于将其经济负担与其他教育问题进行对比，为确定优先事项和资源分配提供依据。成分分析法是一种成本分析方法，先前已应用于卫生专业教育研究。本研究介绍了成分分析法，并将其应用于一项案例研究，以调查临床前学生失败的成本。
介绍并应用了成分分析法的四个步骤：（1）确定并具体说明资源项目；（2）以自然单位衡量资源量；（3）为资源项目分配货币价格；（4）分析和报告成本。计算基于澳大利亚一所大学的物理治疗项目。
每位失败学生的成本为 5991 英镑，分布在学生（70%）、政府（21%）和大学（8%）之间。如果将失败和退学的成本分摊给剩余的继续学习的学生，每位受教育学生的成本将从每学期 9923 英镑增加到 11391 英镑。
卫生专业教育的经济学很复杂。研究人员在进行成本核算时应考虑准确性和可行性，以更好地为成本意识决策提供信息。
