Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Med Educ. 2020 Mar;54(3):188-195. doi: 10.1111/medu.14021. Epub 2019 Dec 18.
As educational theories are increasingly used in medical education research there are concerns over how these theories are used, how well they are presented and what the authors intend. Communities of practice (CoP) is one example of an often-used theory and conceptual framework. This paper presents a critical analysis of how CoP theory is used in medical education research.
A critical literature analysis was undertaken of articles published between 1998 and 2018 in eight internationally recognised medical education journals. From a total of 541 articles, 80 articles met the inclusion criteria and were analysed and mapped according to various patterns of use.
We discerned five categories of use, two misleading and cosmetic, off target and cosmeticising, and three functional, framing, lensing and transferring. A considerable number of articles either misrepresented the point of communities of practice or used it in a cosmetic fashion. The remainder used the theory to frame an ongoing study in relation to other work, as a lens through which to design the study and collect or analyse data, or as a way of discussing or demonstrating the transferability of the findings.
We conclude that almost half of the reviewed articles did not offer a functional and rigorous definition of what is meant by CoP; instead, they used it in a potentially misleading or cosmetic manner. This study therefore calls on editors, reviewers and authors alike to increase clarity and quality in the application of CoP theory in medical education.
随着教育理论在医学教育研究中的应用日益广泛，人们越来越关注这些理论的应用方式、呈现方式以及作者的意图。实践共同体（CoP）就是一个经常被使用的理论和概念框架的例子。本文对 CoP 理论在医学教育研究中的应用进行了批判性分析。
对 1998 年至 2018 年在八本国际知名医学教育期刊上发表的文章进行了批判性文献分析。在总共 541 篇文章中，有 80 篇符合纳入标准，并根据各种使用模式进行了分析和映射。
我们发现有五种使用类别，两种是误导性和表面性的，两种是偏离目标和表面性的，三种是功能性的，包括框架、透视和转移。相当多的文章要么歪曲了实践共同体的要点，要么以表面的方式使用它。其余的文章则将该理论用于框架正在进行的研究与其他工作，将其作为设计研究、收集或分析数据的工具，或者作为讨论或展示研究结果可转移性的一种方式。
我们的结论是，在所审查的文章中，近一半没有对 CoP 的含义提供功能和严格的定义；相反，他们以一种潜在的误导性或表面性的方式使用它。因此，这项研究呼吁编辑、评审员和作者在医学教育中应用 CoP 理论时提高清晰度和质量。
