Introducing an online community into a clinical education setting: a pilot study of student and staff engagement and outcomes using blended learning

BMC Medical Education

Research Article

Jacinta Tobin¹  Kathleen Gray¹ 

[1] Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia;

关键词: Online Community;    Clinical Education;    Learning Management System;    Blended Learning;    File Server;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-10-6

 received in 2009-08-27, accepted in 2010-01-26,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere are growing reasons to use both information and communication functions of learning technologies as part of clinical education, but the literature offers few accounts of such implementations or evaluations of their impact. This paper details the process of implementing a blend of online and face-to-face learning and teaching in a clinical education setting and it reports on the educational impact of this innovation.MethodsThis study designed an online community to complement a series of on-site workshops and monitored its use over a semester. Quantitative and qualitative data recording 43 final-year medical students' and 13 clinical educators' experiences with this blended approach to learning and teaching were analysed using access, adoption and quality criteria as measures of impact.ResultsThe introduction of the online community produced high student ratings of the quality of learning and teaching and it produced student academic results that were equivalent to those from face-to-face-only learning and teaching. Staff had mixed views about using blended learning.ConclusionsProjects such as this take skilled effort and time. Strong incentives are required to encourage clinical staff and students to use a new mode of communication. A more synchronous or multi-channel communication feedback system might stimulate increased adoption. Cultural change in clinical teaching is also required before clinical education can benefit more widely from initiatives such as this.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Gray and Tobin; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010