Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Healthcare education is complex and multifaceted, requiring study from different angles and with different lenses. We propose that the use of a meta-framework can help those teaching and researching postgraduate health professions education make holistic sense of their practice and findings from different projects. We discuss how we have employed Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) as an overarching theoretical framework for the scholarship of learning and teaching in the context of postgraduate health professions education. Taking a structured approach to pedagogical thinking and research through the use of a meta-framework opens up useful ways of framing findings and further questions, locating research projects within a bigger picture, and communicating to others the focus of a research programme. We address the problem of the under-theorizing of educational research in postgraduate health professions education, advocating both theoretical frameworks for individual research projects, and an overarching theoretical "meta-framework" to interrogate and draw together multiple studies. In doing so we build on, critique and further develop Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory.
Highlights
Healthcare education is complex and multifaceted, requiring study from different angles and with different lenses
We have presented an example of how an overarching theoretical framework can help educators make sense of a range of teaching and research initiatives
We have offered ecological systems theory as an example of a potentiallyvaluable theoretical meta-framework that has enabled us to respond to the need for theoretically informed research into postgraduate taught (PGT)-health professions education (HPE) that locates the individual student within a wider context that involves interactions within and between different systems
Summary
The delivery of PGT programmes is complex and multi-faceted. As a team with responsibility for delivering a large online programme in Clinical Education we found it challenging to consider the numerous and interconnected factors likely to influence the student experience. This learning is taken back to the individual’s hospital or university and considered in her or his own context, influencing the macro culture of medical education in Poland Locating this activity within a network of ecological systems helps us to explore the impact of our postgraduate, online programme, and illustrates why the wider educational community, in clinical and university settings, should be interested in what is being taught and its practical consequences. An example would be our work with programme graduates looking at their development over time, within and across ecological systems
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
