Assessing student characteristics in palliative care education research: a literature review

Abstract

Assessing characteristics in educational research is important to describe a student sample. However, consistency in measuring student characteristics is lacking, particularly in palliative and end-of-life (PEOL) care education research. A literature review was conducted to determine the primary characteristics to assess in PEOL education research, the corresponding level of measurement and associated statistical analyses to perform with the data. Key characteristics to measure include: age, previous PEOL healthcare experience, previous personal experience with death/loss, previous PEOL education, program of enrolment and religion. Gender, ethnicity/race and living situation/place of residence were not supported as key characteristics to assess. Best methods by which to measure characteristics remain unclear and the utilisation of characteristics in research is inconsistent. Identified characteristics should be measured in PEOL education research at the highest level of measurement. The influence of characteristics on outcomes should be considered in association with research questions.