Benefits of off-campus education for students in the health sciences: a text-mining analysis

BMC Medical Education

Haruyasu Yamaguchi³  Tohru Yoshida³  Mitsuko Ushikubo³  Keiko Yamada²  Yasuyoshi Asakawa³  Kazumasa Nakagawa¹ 

[1] Faculty of Health Care, Takasaki University of Health and Welfare, Takasaki City, Gunma, JAPAN;Comprehensive Regional Support Center, Western Part of Maebashi City, Gunma, JAPAN;Graduate School of Health Sciences, Gunma University, Maebashi City, Gunma, JAPAN

关键词: Text-mining methods;    Role model;    Early exposure;    School of health sciences;    Community-based education;   

Others  :  1153376
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-12-84

 received in 2012-06-25, accepted in 2012-08-22,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

In Japan, few community-based approaches have been adopted in health-care professional education, and the appropriate content for such approaches has not been clarified. In establishing community-based education for health-care professionals, clarification of its learning effects is required. A community-based educational program was started in 2009 in the health sciences course at Gunma University, and one of the main elements in this program is conducting classes outside school. The purpose of this study was to investigate using text-analysis methods how the off-campus program affects students.

Methods

In all, 116 self-assessment worksheets submitted by students after participating in the off-campus classes were decomposed into words. The extracted words were carefully selected from the perspective of contained meaning or content. With the selected terms, the relations to each word were analyzed by means of cluster analysis.

Results

Cluster analysis was used to select and divide 32 extracted words into four clusters: cluster 1—“actually/direct,” “learn/watch/hear,” “how,” “experience/participation,” “local residents,” “atmosphere in community-based clinical care settings,” “favorable,” “communication/conversation,” and “study”; cluster 2—“work of staff member” and “role”; cluster 3—“interaction/communication,” “understanding,” “feel,” “significant/important/necessity,” and “think”; and cluster 4—“community,” “confusing,” “enjoyable,” “proactive,” “knowledge,” “academic knowledge,” and “class.”

Conclusions

The students who participated in the program achieved different types of learning through the off-campus classes. They also had a positive impression of the community-based experience and interaction with the local residents, which is considered a favorable outcome. Off-campus programs could be a useful educational approach for students in health sciences.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Nakagawa et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]O’Toole TP, Kathuria N, Mishra M, Schukart D: Teaching professionalism within a community context: perspectives from a national demonstration project. Acad Med 2005, 80:339-343.
• [2]Habbick BF, Leeder SR: Orienting medical education to community need: a review. Med Educ 1996, 30:163-171.
• [3]Hyppola H, Kumpusalo E, Virjo I, Mattila K, Neittaanmaki L, Halila H, Kujala S, Luhtala R, Isokoski M: Evaluation of undergraduate medical education in Finnish community-oriented and traditional medical faculties: a 10-year follow-up. Med Educ 2000, 34:1016-1018.
• [4]Davidson RA, Waddell R: A historical overview of interdisciplinary family health: a community-based interprofessional health professions courses. Acad Med 2005, 80:334-338.
• [5]Aaron MC, William H: A survey of current work in biomedical text mining. Brief Bioinform 2005, 6:57-71.
• [6]Huang J, An A, Hu V, Tu K: Medical text analytics tools for search and classification. Studies in Health Technol Inform 2009, 143:519-524.
• [7]Leone-Perkins M, Schnuth RL, Lipsky MS: Students’ evaluations of teaching and learning experiences at community- and residency- besed practices. Fam Med 1999, 31:572-577.
• [8]Lennox A, Petersen S: Development and evaluation of a community based, multiagency course for medical students: descriptive survey. BMJ 1998, 316:596-599.
• [9]Shannon CK, Baker H, Jackson J, Roy A, Heady H, Gunel E: Evaluation of a required statewide interdisciplinary rural health education program: student attitudes, career intents and perceived quality. Educ Health (Abingdon) 2005, 18:395-404.
• [10]Worley P, Esterman A, Prideaux D: Cohort study of examination performance of undergraduate medical students learning in community settings. BMJ 2004, 328:207-209.
• [11]Martini CJ, Veloski JJ, Barzansky B, Xu G, Fields SK: Medical school and student characteristics that influence choosing a generalist career. JAMA 1994, 272:661-668.
• [12]Howe A, Ives G: Does community-based experience alter career preference? New evidence from a prospective longitudinal cohort study of undergraduate medical students. Med Educ 2001, 35:391-397.
• [13]O’Sullivan M, Martin J, Murray E: Students’ perceptions of the relative advantages and disadvantages of community-based and hospital-based teaching: a qualitative study. Med Educ 2000, 34:648-655.
• [14]Seabrook MA, Lempp H, Woodfield SF: Extending community involvement in the medical curriculum: lessons from a case study. Med Educ 1999, 33:838-845.
• [15]Meyer D, Armstrong-Coben A, Batista M: How a community-based organization and an academic health center are creating an effective partnership for training and service. Acad Med 2005, 80:327-333.
• [16]Calleson DC, Jordan C, Seifer SD: Community-engaged scholarship: is faculty work in communities a true academic enterprise? Acad Med 2005, 80:317-321.