The Future of e-Learning in Medical Education: Current Trend and Future Opportunity

Abstract

A wide range of e-learning modalities are widely integrated in medical education. However, some of the key questions related to the role of e-learning remain unanswered, such as (1) what is an effective approach to integrating technology into pre-clinical vs. clinical training?; (2) what evidence exists regarding the type and format of e-learning technology suitable for medical specialties and clinical settings?; (3) which design features are known to be effective in designing on-line patient simulation cases, tutorials, or clinical exams?; and (4) what guidelines exist for determining an appropriate blend of instructional strategies, including on-line learning, face-to-face instruction, and performance-based skill practices? Based on the existing literature and a variety of e-learning examples of synchronous learning tools and simulation technology, this paper addresses the following three questions: (1) what is the current trend of e-learning in medical education?; (2) what do we know about the effective use of e-learning?; and (3) what is the role of e-learning in facilitating newly emerging competency-based training? As e-learning continues to be widely integrated in training future physicians, it is critical that our efforts in conducting evaluative studies should target specific e-learning features that can best mediate intended learning goals and objectives. Without an evolving knowledge base on how best to design e-learning applications, the gap between what we know about technology use and how we deploy e-learning in training settings will continue to widen.

Computer Literacy and Attitudes towards eLearning among Sri Lankan Medical Students

“…Some institutions are using e-learning as a part of their blended curricula in which e-learning is playing a role of supplementing or as an adjunct tool (5) .…”

Medical Community of Inquiry: A Diagnostic Tool for Learning, Assessment, and Research

“…The a-priori reluctance of our participants to incorporate e-learning in teaching, like that found in many other studies (e.g., Kim, 2006;Raby & Meunier, 2011;Tondeur et al, 2012), confirms the need for professional support to overcome these barriers. In light of the great potential of CoI as learning enhancers, our aim was to increase its utilization in medical courses, despite this widespread a-priori reluctance of medical educators to adopt it.…”

Tendencies of medical education researches in Turkey: Content analysis of 2000-2014 period

“…The effort spent on curriculum design and standardization may explain the frequently use of program competency variable [38]. Moreover, there are studies stating that academic achievement and skills are investigated frequently [34]. Besides, it was observed that such professional competencies as patient rights and responsibility of the doctor weren't investigated in the post-graduate level and barely investigated in the continuing education level.…”

“…However, the use of interview, questionnaire and observation form is expressed to be increasing because of the growing popularity of case studies as a research design in medical education researches [34]. The widely use of questionnaire and achievement tests may have required the descriptive or predictive analyses to be conducted in the researches frequently.…”