Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Community and Health Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa.
Department of Physiotherapy, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Monash University, Frankston, Australia.
BMC Med Educ. 2019 Sep 14;19(1):356. doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1774-9.
Open Online Courses (OOCs) are increasingly presented as a possible solution to the many challenges of higher education. However, there is currently little evidence available to support decisions around the use of OOCs in health professions education. The aim of this systematic review was to summarise the available evidence describing the features of OOCs in health professions education and to analyse their utility for decision-making using a self-developed framework consisting of point scores around effectiveness, learner experiences, feasibility, pedagogy and economics.
Electronic searches of PubMed, Medline, Embase, PsychInfo and CINAHL were made up to April 2019 using keywords related to OOC variants and health professions. We accepted any type of full text English publication with no exclusions made on the basis of study quality. Data were extracted using a custom-developed, a priori critical analysis framework comprising themes relating to effectiveness, economics, pedagogy, acceptability and learner experience.
54 articles were included in the review and 46 were of the lowest levels of evidence, and most were offered by institutions based in the United States (n = 11) and United Kingdom (n = 6). Most studies provided insufficient course detail to make any confident claims about participant learning, although studies published from 2016 were more likely to include information around course aims and participant evaluation. In terms of the five categories identified for analysis, few studies provided sufficiently robust evidence to be used in formal decision making in undergraduate or postgraduate curricula.
This review highlights a poor state of evidence to support or refute claims regarding the effectiveness of OOCs in health professions education. Health professions educators interested in developing courses of this nature should adopt a critical and cautious position regarding their adoption.
开放在线课程（OOC）越来越被视为解决高等教育诸多挑战的一种可能方案。然而，目前几乎没有证据可以支持在健康专业教育中使用 OOC 的决策。本系统评价的目的是总结现有证据，描述健康专业教育中 OOC 的特点，并使用我们自行开发的框架（包括有效性、学习者体验、可行性、教学法和经济学方面的评分点）分析其在决策中的效用。
我们使用与 OOC 变体和健康专业相关的关键词，对 PubMed、Medline、Embase、PsychInfo 和 CINAHL 进行了截至 2019 年 4 月的电子检索。我们接受任何类型的全文英文出版物，不根据研究质量进行排除。使用我们自行开发的、预先确定的关键分析框架提取数据，该框架包含与有效性、经济学、教学法、可接受性和学习者体验相关的主题。
共纳入 54 篇文章，其中 46 篇为证据水平最低的研究，且大部分来自美国（n=11）和英国（n=6）的机构。大多数研究提供的课程细节不足，无法对参与者的学习做出任何有信心的结论，尽管 2016 年发表的研究更有可能包括课程目标和参与者评估方面的信息。在确定的五个分析类别中，很少有研究提供足够有力的证据来支持或反驳 OOC 在健康专业教育中的有效性。对开发此类课程感兴趣的健康专业教育者应在采用时采取批判性和谨慎的态度。
本综述突出了支持或反驳 OOC 在健康专业教育中有效性的证据不足的情况。对开发此类课程感兴趣的健康专业教育者应在采用时采取批判性和谨慎的态度。
