Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Centre, Hippocratespad 21, Zone V7-P, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC, Leiden, The Netherlands.
ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching, Leiden, The Netherlands.
BMC Med Educ. 2019 Jul 18;19(1):268. doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1665-0.
The educational beliefs of medical academics influence how they act in class and thus influence student learning. One component of these are beliefs academics hold about the qualities of teachers themselves. These teacher qualities range from behaviours and competencies to more personal attributes such as the teacher's identity and mission. However, it is unclear what medical academics believe to be key teacher qualities. Therefore, this study explored the variety of medical academics' beliefs about 'teacher qualities', aiming to identify and characterise profiles of academics with similar beliefs.
We interviewed 26 expert academics from two medical schools to explore their beliefs about teacher qualities. A concentric onion-model focusing on teacher qualities was used to analyse and categorise the data deductively. Within each theme we developed subthemes inductively. To gain insight into the variety of beliefs we then clustered the participants into teacher profiles according to the themes. To better understand each of the profiles we carried out a quantitative study of the differences between profiles regarding subthemes, contextual and personal factors, and analysed statistical significance using Fisher's exact- and Student's t-tests for categorical and continuous data, respectively.
Four profiles of medical academics were identified, corresponding to the most central theme that each participant had reflected on: the 'Inspirer', 'Role-model', 'Practitioner', and 'Critic'. The focus of the profiles varied from external constraining factors within the 'Critic' profile to affective personal qualities within the 'Role-model' and 'Inspirer' profiles. The profiles could be regarded as hierarchically ordered by inclusiveness. Educational institute was the only significant factor related to the profiles.
Besides the relevance of affective teacher qualities, the 'Inspirer' profile demonstrates the importance of developing a clear mission as a teaching academic, centred around student learning and professional development. In our view, academics who inspire their students continue to be inspired themselves. The practical implications are described for faculty development programmes, and for the potential value of using these profiles within medical schools. In the discourse on educational beliefs, the authors argue that more attention should be paid to affective qualities, in particular to explicating the educational mission of academics.
医学学术人员的教育信仰影响他们在课堂上的行为方式，从而影响学生的学习。这些信仰的一个组成部分是他们对教师自身素质的看法。这些教师素质包括行为和能力，以及更个人化的属性，如教师的身份和使命。然而，目前尚不清楚医学学术人员认为哪些是关键的教师素质。因此，本研究探讨了医学学术人员对“教师素质”的各种看法，旨在确定和描述具有相似信仰的学术人员的特征。
我们采访了来自两所医学院的 26 名专家学者，以探讨他们对教师素质的看法。采用以教师素质为中心的同心洋葱模型对数据进行了演绎分析和分类。在每个主题中，我们都从理论上发展了子主题。为了深入了解各种信仰，我们根据主题将参与者分为教师档案。为了更好地理解每个档案，我们对档案之间的子主题、背景和个人因素进行了定量研究，并分别使用 Fisher 精确检验和学生 t 检验分析了分类数据和连续数据的统计学意义。
确定了四种医学学术人员的档案，分别对应于每位参与者反思的最核心主题：“激励者”、“榜样”、“实践者”和“批评者”。档案的重点从“批评者”档案中的外部约束因素到“榜样”和“激励者”档案中的情感个人素质各不相同。这些档案可以被认为是按照包容性的层次顺序排列的。教育机构是与档案相关的唯一显著因素。
除了情感教师素质的相关性外，“激励者”档案还展示了作为一名教学学术人员发展明确使命的重要性，该使命以学生学习和专业发展为中心。在我们看来，激励学生的学者本身也会受到激励。本文还描述了对教师发展计划的实际影响，以及在医学院内使用这些档案的潜在价值。在关于教育信仰的讨论中，作者认为应该更加关注情感素质，特别是要明确阐述学术人员的教育使命。
