Initiating undergraduate medical students into communities of research practise: what do supervisors recommend?

Simon C Riley,Margaret MacDougall

doi:10.1186/1472-6920-10-83

Simon C Riley, Margaret MacDougall

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-10-83

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Abstract

BackgroundMuch has been written in the educational literature on the value of communities of practise in enhancing student learning. Here, we take the experience of senior undergraduate medical students involved in short-term research as a member of a team as a paradigm for learning in a community of practise. Based on feedback from experienced supervisors, we offer recommendations for initiating students into the research culture of their team. In so doing, we endeavour to create a bridge between theory and practise through disseminating advice on good supervisory practise, where the supervisor is perceived as an educator responsible for designing the research process to optimize student learning.MethodsUsing the questionnaire design tool SurveyMonkey and comprehensive lists of contact details of staff who had supervised research projects at the University of Edinburgh during 1995 - 2008, current and previous supervisors were invited to recommend procedures which they had found successful in initiating students into the research culture of a team. Text responses were then coded in the form of derivative recommendations and categorized under general themes and sub-themes.ResultsUsing the chi-square tests of linear trend and association, evidence was found for a positive trend towards more experienced supervisors offering responses (χ2 = 16.833, p < 0.0005, n = 215) while there was a lack of evidence of bias in the gender distribution of respondents (χ2 = 0.482, p = 0.487, n = 203), respectively. A total of 126 codes were extracted from the text responses of 65 respondents. These codes were simplified to form a complete list of 52 recommendations, which were in turn categorized under seven derivative overarching themes, the most highly represented themes being Connecting the student with others and Cultivating self-efficacy in research competence.ConclusionsThrough the design of a coding frame for supervisor responses, a wealth of ideas has been captured to make communities of research practise effective mediums for undergraduate student learning. The majority of these recommendations are underpinned by educational theory and have the potential to take the learner beyond the stage of initiation to that of integration within their community of research practise.

Highlights

Much has been written in the educational literature on the value of communities of practise in enhancing student learning
The ward team is the community of practise and learning as an apprentice is understood to lead to “professional adhesion” within different specialties through “socialisation into attitudes and values” [6]. (v) Review of research experiences of students (’the novices’) enrolled in Masters and PhD programmes in medical education
A call is made for good quality medical education research on the development of communities of practise to connect “novices” and “experts” [7]

Summary

Introduction

Much has been written in the educational literature on the value of communities of practise in enhancing student learning. (i) Undergraduates learning professionalism within clinical settings in early years In this case, the medical profession is alluded to as a community of practise - an idea which we shall briefly return to later in this paper. It is recommended that interested medical and other health educators, the community of (professional) practise, develop a virtual evidence-base as a collaborative tool for negotiating a) good practise in the use of Web 2.0 technology in student learning and b) the content of learning materials for sharing among the community [4]. (v) Review of research experiences of students (’the novices’) enrolled in Masters and PhD programmes in medical education In this case, a call is made for good quality medical education research on the development of communities of practise to connect “novices” and “experts” [7]. With reference to “the process of supervising [student] research in a medical education setting” [7] Pugsley emphasizes that:

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