The effect of teaching without pedagogical training in St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundThe recent expansion of higher education institutions in Ethiopia provides an opportunity for many citizens who did not previously have access to higher or university level education. This opportunity, however, comes with its own challenges, such as ensuring that minimum standards are set and maintaining quality where pedagogical concerns are compromised. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of teaching without pedagogical training, in St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.MethodsAn institutional-based qualitative phenomenological study was conducted through an in-depth interview, using purposive sampling techniques. Participants were instructors and students selected from SPHMMC who had participated in the teaching or learning process or at least 24 months. Owing to data saturation, only 16 instructors and seven students were interviewed, using open-ended and semi-structured questions. Tape recorders and field notes were used. Based on thematic aggregation, the content of the responses was analyzed.ResultsOnly one of the 16 instructors had received pedagogical training for more than one year. Twelve instructors had received 2 days to 2 weeks of training, and the rest were using a personal method of teaching. During the recruitment procedure, only one instructor had been asked to verify their pedagogical background. However, all respondents confirmed that pedagogical training is very important to facilitate the teaching-learning process. In this study, most of the instructors practiced their personal teaching methods, which resulted in no common delivery system of teaching content, which can be huge, no lesson plan, no clear objectives to courses, poor time management, different instructors having overlapping course content, no table of specifications, and no proper evaluation mechanisms for either the students’ or the teachers’ performance. On the students’ side, because of the vast and unplanned course content and poor time management, their participation in the learning process was insufficient, which could affect their learning.ConclusionBecause of the gap in pedagogical training, college teachers use personal teaching methods, and this negatively affects the standardization of delivery methods. To improve this drawback, proper pedagogical training should be provided for all teachers. This would help them to deliver quality education and to produce competent graduates from the institute to supply the workforce.

Quality improvement training for burn care in low-and middle-income countries: A pilot course for nurses

“…The course was developed recognising that in Malawi authoritarian and teacher-centred styles tend to dominate the educational activities of nurse tutors and clinical learning [ [34] , [35] , [36] ], while staff in Malawi and Ethiopia have been less able to develop their approaches to pedagogy due to a lack of resources and opportunities [ [37] , [38] , [39] ]. However, more recently there has been an increase in examples of success (in both Malawi and Ethiopia) where participatory and active learning techniques have been used to build research capacity and implement post-graduate training curriculums [ [40] , [41] , [42] , [43] ].…”

Sexual and reproductive health “Train The Trainer” programs in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review

“…30 In line with OECD recommendations, a study assessing the effect of pedagogy in training at a teaching hospital in Ethiopia, found that the absence of pedagogical methods led to unplanned, unwieldly and unstandardized course content, poor teacher time management and limited opportunities for students to participate in their own learning. 31 The authors propose that training in pedagogical techniques would result in a higher quality learning that produced competent graduates for the health workforce. 31 A pedagogical technique that was highlighted in this review was the preference for adopting a mix of didactic and interactive training methods.…”

“…31 The authors propose that training in pedagogical techniques would result in a higher quality learning that produced competent graduates for the health workforce. 31 A pedagogical technique that was highlighted in this review was the preference for adopting a mix of didactic and interactive training methods. These findings align with findings of a 2012 systematic review that found that using a combination of teaching methods supports effective training in a sample of TTT studies on health and social care workers from a diverse range of LMI and HI countries.…”

Untitled

“…May 2022 305 and the provision of adequate instructional resources (Al Shabibi & Silvennoinen, 2018;Ambusaidi, Badiali, & Alkharousi, 2021;Biku et al, 2018;Egne, 2020). In this regard, the type of pedagogy being used by instructors of the Ethiopian higher education institutions should enhance the implementation of the above reform programs.…”