Opening up a tailored tutor qualification program for medical students to other healthcare students – a mixed-method study

Abstract

Background Peer-led tutorials are widely used in medical education to promote practical skills acquisition and support faculty staff. Typically, student tutors are custom trained for this specific task. We investigated whether opening up an existing medical tutor qualification program to other degree programs is successful in terms of acceptance among students, acquisition of tutor-specific and interprofessional competencies, and which factors contribute to success or failure. Methods We developed a two-day tutor qualification program and conducted it annually from 2016 to 2020 with medical and other healthcare students. At the end of each course, we administered a written survey in which the participants rated the following items: their attitudes towards interprofessional learning (using the UWE-IP-D Interprofessional Learning Scale), the interprofessional learning setting, the teaching approach, and their competency acquisition (each on a five-point Likert scale; 1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). Furthermore, we assessed participants’ qualitative feedback in free-text fields and performed inductive content analyses. Results The study participation rate was high (response rate 97%; medical students: n = 75; healthcare students: n = 22). Participants stated high levels of competency acquisition (total M = 1.59, individual items’ M’s ranging from 1.20 to 2.05) and even higher satisfaction with the teaching approach (total M = 1.28, individual items’ M’s ranging from 1.43 to 1.05). Overall satisfaction with the training was M = 1.22; SD = 0.58. No significant differences in ratings were found between the student groups. The qualitative results showed that students appreciated the interprofessional setting and experienced it as enriching. The most positive feedback was found in didactics/teaching methods on role-plays and group work; most suggestions for improvement were found in the area of structure and organisation on breaks and time management. Conclusions Opening up an existing medical tutor qualification program to other student groups can be seen as fruitful to teach not only tutor-related aspects but also interprofessional competencies. The results demonstrate the importance of detailed planning that considers group composition and contextual conditions and provides interactive teaching methods to promote interprofessional experiences. This study offers important information about prerequisites and methodological implementation that could be important for the interprofessional redesign of existing training programs.

Undergraduate Interprofessional Education in the European Higher Education Area: A Systematic Review

“…The agreement between the two raters (i.e., the inter-rater reliability) was >90%. The papers reported the use of IPE interventions in 14 different EHEA member countries (Table 1), and the distribution was uneven among the countries, with most of The papers reported the use of IPE interventions in 14 different EHEA member countries (Table 1), and the distribution was uneven among the countries, with most of the papers from Germany (n = 8) [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], the UK (n = 8) [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44], and Sweden (n = 5) [45][46][47][48][49][50]. The time frame of publication of the included papers was from 2009 to 2022, with only four [34,35,47,49] of them being published before 2017.…”

“…Of the 32 papers, seven explicitly mentioned the theoretical background on which the intervention was based. These included peer-assisted learning [30,36,59], Jeffries simulation theory [55], Bandura self-efficacy theory [46], Knowles's principles for Adult Learning as guidelines [53], goal theory perspective [59], model of inter-professionality, Beck's cognitive model, and social capital theory [56]. The remaining papers did not explicitly mention the theoretical background of the IPE program [29,[31][32][33][34][35][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][47][48][49][50][51][52]54,57,58,60].…”

“…With respect to the content, the learners were introduced to interprofessional collaborations via exposure to examples of interprofessional care of patients with specific clinical conditions (e.g., wound, ulcers, dementia, diabetes, and breast cancer) in actual setting or in simulation scenarios [31][32][33]35,45,50,51,54,60]. Nine papers reported that the content of the IPE intervention included explicit training on the different professional roles [29,32,[34][35][36]51,54,56,57], and seven papers reported IPE interventions that included training in communication skills [30,32,35,36,40,49,57].…”

“…With respect to the outcomes, the focus was on students' satisfaction with the IPE experience and self-reported gain in knowledge and skills. All studies reported that the outcomes were measured using ad hoc scales and surveys created specifically for the study [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Eight studies [29,40,42,[50][51][52]55,60] also used validated questionnaires to measure students' self-reported experience perception.…”

“…With respect to the professions of the educators, all the studies reported that the team of educators was composed of "experts" from different professions, including academic tutors and clinical supervisors. No study reported information on educators' IPE training experience background, except one paper based on an interprofessional tutor qualification program [30].…”