Key Concepts in Healthcare Education

Annette McIntosh-Scott, Janice Gidman, Elizabeth Mason-Whitehead, Annette McIntosh-Scott, Janice Gidman, Elizabeth Mason-Whitehead

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781446243473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Enfermería

Key Concepts in Healthcare Education is a guide to the key theories, issues and practical considerations involved in healthcare education in the 21st century. It is aimed at those studying to be educators in both academic and practice settings, as well as supporting the continuing professional development of more experienced lecturers and practice educators. The book can be used as a reference source, a platform for further study and an essential text.

The book comprises 40 succinct chapters each covering a topic and featuring

-a definition of the concept

-key points

-discussion of the main issues

-a case study to illustrate the application to practice, and

-suggestions for further reading.

For those developing or enhancing their knowledge and skills in education and mentorship in healthcare, Key Concepts in Healthcare Education is the ideal companion to learning.

1 academic staff development

Dorothy Marriss

 

DEFINITION

Staff development is a sufficiently complex concept to defy a simple definition. It is generally accepted however, that staff development refers to the process whereby employees of an organisation enhance their knowledge and skills in directions that are advantageous to their role in the organisation. Definitions of staff development may be approached from the perspectives of the developer, the employer and the person being developed. O’Leary (1997) argued that staff development activity has to be outcome and process orientated, while Collett and Davidson (1997) suggested that a significant component of staff development is to facilitate change on a personal, professional and institutional level. Webb (1996) highlighted the need for human understanding and recognition that the feelings, emotions, humanity and ‘being’ of the people involved play an important part in staff development. This ‘being’ of the people was reinforced by Thornton and McEntee (1998) who viewed staff development as self development guided by critical questions and practised within frameworks that can lead to meeting the needs of all persons involved in the process. Essentially, staff development is an on-going process of education, training, learning and support activities and is concerned with helping people to grow within the organisations in which they are employed. An emphasis on lifelong learning, personal growth and fulfilment underlines the importance of sustained development. While the term ‘staff development’ has been defined in a number of ways, the primary purpose of academic staff development is to expand the educators’ awareness of the various tasks they must undertake to contribute to the effective education of their students and the accomplishment of the organisation’s objectives. Broadly, these tasks will include those associated with teaching and learning, research and scholarship, professional updating, administration and management. For most educators, learning and teaching activities will be central and staff development will include an in-depth consideration of learning and teaching situations so the educators are able to adjust and develop their teaching competencies and activities.

KEY POINTS

 

• The contemporary Higher Education (HE) culture of quality and audit places demands on healthcare educators for sustained high quality of teaching, for keeping up to date professionally, for effective administrative procedures and for research and scholarship.
• Work-based learning needs to be at the heart of staff development. Real life situations provide a focus for the process of reflection and the development and maintenance of skills.
• Particular challenges for new lecturers include the need to perform in the roles of scholar/researcher and teacher.
• In HE, careers may be characterised by different combinations involving teaching, research and management.

DISCUSSION

The cultural context of staff development

Institutional culture is characterised by the complex set of values and beliefs of the institution’s staff. An enabling culture, in terms of staff development, is one that values individuals and gives the highest priority to professional development in order to transform professional practice and enhance job satisfaction.

External agencies influence culture by exercising indirect control over institutions, with increasing levels of accountability required for teaching and research. Best practice is identified and sustained through quality assurance and enhancement. The challenges, opportunities and issues for staff development are mainly a response to these initiatives. For example, in the United Kingdom (UK), a review of care in the National Health Service recommended that the maintenance of quality at the heart of patient care and service delivery required the healthcare educators to keep up to date, encourage staff development and accept responsibility for change (Darzi, 2008).

There are numerous frameworks and approaches to staff development including Investors in People (IIP) (2004), the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) (2003) and the UK’s Higher Education Academy (2004). These systems, techniques and strategies have a strong focus on the professional development of all academic staff. Teaching and research are, in principle, equally important in HE, with research, reflection and enquiry being essential tools in the development of educators able to interrogate the production and communication of knowledge in their discipline.

Developing and maintaining the skills of educators in healthcare

Sound academic development, involving research, scholarship and pedagogy, is necessary to move healthcare education forward. The challenges for the educators include the need to keep abreast of a range of curricular and policy imperatives, as well as acquiring the skills to respond to the needs of students.

At an individual level, educators can be helped to identify their development needs in a number of ways, including self review, job analysis, peer review, informal discussion with their line manager or an individual appraisal interview.

Development can be enabled through observation, reflection, planning and action. Critical to the success of these approaches is the need for flexibility when engaging with the process rather than a mechanical routine approach. Individuals can learn alone or in a collaborative context and contributions from co-participants can encourage and make professional development more likely. Lifelong learning is central to developing and maintaining skills. Watson and Harris (1999) described the process as one that never formally starts or ends and viewed lifelong learning as an on-going process of critical reflection and questioning to arrive at new information or knowledge to inform action. Weick (1995) considered lifelong learning as a sense-making process of constructing, filtering, framing and creating. Clearly, for effective staff development, it is necessary to work flexibly and eclectically in order to meet the demands of each situation. Reliance on any one approach may hinder effective development.

Challenges for new educators

It is important to recognise that new educators in HE have their own distinctive development needs. Trowler and Knight (1999) discussed the socialisation of new entrants to HE and recognised how crucial the development process is. New educators need to be enabled to deal with the fundamentals of developing their teaching and research. They must also become engaged in academic communication structures, committees, quality assurance processes and curriculum development to meet new agendas. Central to self development is self-directed learning, with the individual having the opportunity to control aspects of their learning and construct meaningful learning experiences that enable improvements in knowledge and competency. The development of professional competence involves the acquisition of skills and ability, evidenced through performance tasks. As educators become reflectively aware of the behaviour, attitudes and motivations manifested in their performances, they are able to control the sort of person they want to become as educators.

Personal factors play a part in the individual’s stance in relation to the development process; each person will have his or her own learning style and the way that the individual strives to achieve meaning in the learning process is an important consideration in the management of the staff development process.

Career pathways

As careers develop they reflect and influence personal development and can be facilitated by a variety of processes, role models and forms of mentorship. Engagement in staff/self development should be seen as an excellent investment for moving towards career goals. Staff who seek opportunities and adapt to change should achieve direct career-related benefits.

CASE STUDY

Susan is a senior lecturer in her second year of employment in HE. She had a good performance record, her specialism was paediatric nursing and she taught on the pre-registration nurse education programme. In her annual staff development interview Susan reviewed her work activities against her job description and outlined her staff development experiences since the last review. She wanted to enhance her skills in research and clinical practice and agreed a clinical development opportunity with her line manager.

Susan made contact with a senior manager in her link area and identified a small-scale research project to review the achievements and behavioural changes of qualified staff following the successful completion of an educational programme in paediatric intensive care nursing. Susan was given time remission to lead the project. The outcomes were a 15,000 word research report, a paper presentation at a national conference and a publication in a refereed journal.

Susan’s self direction and determination to meet her development needs were rewarded by this successful development experience. She had enhanced her research skills and partnership working. It is recognised by Turner and Harkin (2003) that self-directed professional development is likely to have a more sustained impact than development in which the educators are coerced to participate. Susan’s approach to her staff development created an opportunity for HE and clinical service to work collaboratively and explore education, clinical practice and clinical staff development. Susan felt valued in being given this learning opportunity and, due to her planning and organisation, the project succeeded and impacted positively on her learning and teaching.

CONCLUSION

Staff development is both complex and straightforward. It is complex in the number of interpretations, perspectives and processes that can be entailed. It is straightforward in its focus on the development of individuals in ways that suit them and their organisations. Effective staff development is characterised by two components: the individual’s professional development and the organisational development process. The two combine in a partnership for staff development. An effective staff development process is supportive of the individual and beneficial for the organisation. The developer helps the individual identify learning needs, the individual advises on the input and goals that are required. The organisation invests in the individual and the developed individual benefits the organisation. In an effective process the individual feels valued and develops confidence, and the organisation receives an enhanced input from the individual. Different visions will inform the process. Educators in HE may see themselves as teachers, as researchers, as managers or, primarily, as professionals. An effective developer provides a framework for educators and uses their expertise to help them to develop their career aspirations through learning projects that enable the educators’ self determination to achieve their career goals.

It is truly the role of HE institutions to invest in the development of their people. Thus the success of the institution and the fulfilment of its staff are assured.

See also: experiential and work-based learning; interprofessional learning; leadership and management in academia; learning styles; peer support and observation; quality assurance and enhancement; reflection; research and scholarly activity

FURTHER READING

Barnett, R. (2005) Reshaping the University: New Relationships between Research, Scholarship and Teaching. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

REFERENCES

Collett, P. and Davidson, M. (1997) ‘Re-negotiating autonomy and accountability: the professional growth of developers in a South African institution’, International Journal for Academic Development, 2 (2): 28–34.

Darzi, A. (2008) High Quality Care for All, NHS Next Stage Review. Final Report. London: Department of Health.

European Foundation for Quality Management (2003) EFQM Annual Report 2003. Brussels: European Foundation for Quality Management.

Higher Education Academy (2004) The UK Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education. York: HEA.

Investors in People (2004) Retrieved from Investors in People website: www.iipuk.co.uk/TheStandard/default.htm

O’Leary, J. (1997) ‘Staff development in a climate of economic rationalism: a profile of the academic staff developer’, International Journal for Academic Development, 2 (2): 72–82.

Thornton, L.J. and McEntee, M.E. (1998) ‘Staff development as self development: extension and application of Russo’s humanistic-critical theory approach for humanistic education and social action integration’, Humanistic Education and Development, 36 (3): 143-59.

Trowler, P. and Knight, P.T. (1999) ‘Organisational socialisation and induction in universities: reconceptualising theory and practice’, Higher Education, 37 (2): 177–95.

Turner, G. and Harkin, J. (2003) Factors Involved in the Facilitation of the Self-directed Professional Development of Teachers. Loughborough: National Association of Staff Development.

Watson, T. and Harris, P. (1999) The Emergent Manager. London: Sage.

Webb, G. (1996) Understanding Staff Development. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Weick, K.E. (1995) Sense Making in Organisations. London: Sage.

2 assessment

Janice Gidman with case study by Janine Upton

DEFINITION

The dictionary definition of assessment is ‘to evaluate or estimate’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2009). Assessment has a range of functions, including motivating students, identifying strengths and weaknesses, monitoring progress, confirming the achievement of learning objectives, providing feedback, judging competence and evaluating the effectiveness of teaching (Allin and Turnock, 2007). The purpose of assessment can be formative or summative. Formative assessment mainly focuses on assessment to promote on-going learning, whereas summative assessment focuses on verification that the student meets the requirements either to progress to the next level or to achieve an academic and/or professional award. Boud and Falchikov (2006) also state that assessment should have a long-term emphasis on promoting continuing, lifelong learning in addition to the short-term focus of t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Editors’ Preface
• 1 Academic Staff Development
• 2 Assessment
• 3 Behavioural Learning Theories
• 4 Clinical Competence
• 5 Cognitive Learning Theories
• 6 Complexity Theory
• 7 Curriculum Models and Design
• 8 Curriculum Planning and Development
• 9 Dealing with Failing and Problem Students
• 10 Diversity and Equality
• 11 E-learning
• 12 Experiential and Work-based Learning
• 13 Feedback and Marking
• 14 Humanist Learning Theories
• 15 Information Literacy
• 16 Interprofessional Learning
• 17 Leadership and Management in Academia
• 18 Learning Environments
• 19 Learning Styles
• 20 Management of Modules and Programmes
• 21 Mastery
• 22 Mentorship
• 23 Partnership working
• 24 Peer Support and Observation
• 25 Practice Teaching
• 26 Problem-based Learning
• 27 Professional Accountability
• 28 Quality Assurance and Enhancement
• 29 Reflection
• 30 Research and Scholarly Activity
• 31 Role Model
• 32 Service User and Carer Involvement
• 33 Simulated Learning and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations
• 34 Specific Learning Needs of Students
• 35 Student Support
• 36 Study Skills
• 37 Supervising Masters and PhD Students
• 38 Teaching Strategies
• 39 Teaching Styles
• 40 Transformative Learning