Analysing parent feedback

Experiences from the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust show how data from publicly available sources can be combined with AI-enabled analysis to deliver cost-effective, high-quality feedback

Diagnostics of the school digital educational environment orientation

The digital educational environment has become an important part of the educational process, which has a strong influence on the forms and methods of teaching. The development of the pupil's personality is the main educational task. The orientation of the digital educational environment as a key component of the school educational process has a strong influence on the pupil’s attitude to the learning, the satisfaction with the acquired knowledge, the learning motivation, and on the future professional success. The purpose of the work is to diagnose the school digital educational environment orientation and to propose measures to strengthen its orientation towards the pupils’ personal qualities. The study involved 156 pupils and 56 teachers from two schools at the City of Ryazan. The author's questionnaire was used for diagnosing the school digital educational environment orientation. The questionnaire logic is presented in this article. The results obtained indicate that: 74 % of teachers and 72 % of pupils define the frontal form of work as the most frequently used in school; 83.3 % of teachers are confident that the proposed materials and assignments used in interaction in a digital educational environment correspond to the cognitive interests of pupils. 48.4 % of pupils believe that interaction with a teacher in an organised digital educational environment develops their cognitive interests. The results obtained make it possible to determine the necessary measures to modify the digital educational environment into a personality-oriented digital educational environment: creating conditions for self-presentation, establishing high-quality feedback in the process of performing productive type tasks, increasing the proportion of creative tasks.

Development and evaluation of pilot simulated patient centre: Learning from the experience

Objectives: To compare the performance of paid actor-simulated patients: 1) before and after a simulated patient training programme aiming for programme enhancement; 2) to postgraduate/staff-simulated patients. Methods: Fifty-six student participants watched a series of video recordings of student pharmacist-paid actor-simulated patients role-playing and blindly assessed the performance of paid actor-simulated patients pre- and post-training using the Maastricht Assessment of Simulated Patients (MaSP). Seventy-three student participants compared the paid actor-simulated patients’ performance to postgraduate/staff-simulated patients. Data collected were analysed using paired t-tests and independent t-tests, respectively. Results: There was a statistically significant improvement in the collated MaSP scores for paid actor-simulated patients’ performance post-training in the authenticity of role-playing (mean score ± standard deviation (SD): 2.61 ± 0.30 (Pre-training); 2.70 ± 0.31 (Post-training), p < 0.05) but not the quality of feedback. Similarly, paid actor-simulated patients performed better (in the authenticity of role-playing but not the quality of feedback) when compared to postgraduate/staff-simulated patients. Conclusions: Paid actor-simulated patients require improvement in providing quality feedback to students to enhance students’ learning.

Improving Feedback for Hematology and Oncology Fellows Via Virtual Workshops: Sustainability Analysis

Background Effective feedback is an important tool in medical education for the learning and growth of trainees and for faculty development. It allows learners to remain on course in reaching competence in clinical, research, and interpersonal skills, yet the impact of teaching feedback during hematology-oncology training has not been studied in depth. To tackle the lack of effective constructive feedback within our hematology oncology fellowship program, we initiated a quality improvement (QI) project to identify barriers in delivering and receiving high-quality feedback in the program and to create a curriculum aimed at teaching fellows and faculty how to engage in more effective feedback conversations. In the initial phase of the pilot study, a pre-intervention survey identified the two main barriers for effective feedback in our program as discomfort in giving feedback and lack of protected time. A virtual workshop improved quality of feedback by addressing these barriers and providing tools necessary to give and receive constructive feedback. We aimed to highlight the sustainability of these interventions. Methods Utilizing the results of the pre-intervention survey, we built three 2-hour interactive virtual workshop sessions conducted through the ASCO Quality Training Program. Skills that were emphasized and practiced included appropriate set-up, low-inference observations, dialogic feedback conversations and a structured approach to reinforcing and modifying feedback. A follow up session was conducted three months later allowing for reinforcement of the skills. Post-intervention surveys were given immediately after the initial workshop and after the follow-up session. All surveys were identical employing Likert scale and open-ended questions. Weekly email reminders for protected feedback time were also set up. This project was developed through the ASH Medical Educators Institute. Results Eleven out of 15 attendees completed each of the questionnaires. At baseline, 81.8 % of the participants reported they do not have protected time to complete evaluations. This decreased to 63.6% immediately post-intervention and to 27.3% at the three-month point. Similarly, only 65.5% of the participants reported they were comfortable giving feedback prior to the workshop, increasing to 81.8% immediately after the intervention and was sustained at 81.8% at three months. Half of the participants reported that the feedback was not actionable in the initial questionnaire, decreasing to 10% post-intervention. Majority of the participants agreed that the workshop helped address barriers for effective feedback in our program. Conclusions This study showed the sustainability of positive changes, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, for giving and receiving quality feedback implemented in our fellowship program. Its outcomes are salient given that it utilizes a simple intervention that could be expanded to other training programs as feedback is a systemic problem in medicine. It also underscores the importance of formal workshops in overcoming barriers for effective feedback. Limitations of this QI study include the small sample size and single-institutional design. Our future goals include incorporating a formal yearly curriculum assigning weekly protected time for feedback to ensure these results are sustainable and reproducible with incoming fellows. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Using Logbooks to Enhance Students’ Learning: Lessons From a Mixed-methods Study in an Undergraduate Surgical Rotation

Background: Logbooks are frequently used in medical education to enhance and monitor students’ learning. However, some barriers that may diminish their benefits have been reported. This study aims to evaluate the usefulness of logbooks to students’ learning and identify the factors, which may contribute to their outcomes in learning milieus. Methods: The study used a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the medical students in the fourth- and sixth-year classes and their teachers in the department of surgery at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Tabuk in the academic year 2016–2017. Data were collected using questionnaires, focused group discussions, and personal interviews. Results: Eighty-nine (49 fourth year and 40 sixth year) students and six teachers participated in the study. Logbooks were perceived as useful to students’ learning by 83.3% of the teachers and 75.3% of the students. Logbooks enhanced students’ learning through identification of areas of weaknesses, encouraged seeing more patients’ problems and reading in-depth about some topics, and improved students’ writing skills. Barriers to learning from logbooks included poor-quality feedback, no opportunities for feedback discussion, and unfair marking. Differences in the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of logbooks were observed based on their learning stage. Conclusion: Logbooks are useful to students’ learning in many aspects; however, certain factors could diminish their benefits. Students’ attitude toward the logbook was more favorable during their early clinical experience. Faculty development programs and careful supervision of students’ work may improve the outcome of logbooks in clinical placements. Keywords: logbooks, clinical teaching, written feedback, surgery, Saudi Arabia

Screencast Video Feedback and its Implication on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Writing

Providing feedback to students’ written work has always been a challenging experience for English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and learners. High-quality feedback promotes students’ engagement in learning processes and enhances writing performance. Traditional written corrective feedback has often been criticized for not being able to achieve its purpose. 21st-century technological development brought the necessity to provide audio and video feedback through screencast technology. The letter enables EFL teachers to provide multimodal feedback by recording the teacher’s screen while commenting on a student’s written work. Although there have been some studies conducted in the field of oral feedback via screencast, video feedback is still relatively new in many educational settings. For this reason, the paper aims to provide a brief overview of screencast video feedback, potential affordances and challenges faced by EFL teachers and learners. For this article, recent research studies have been collected to review the use of screencast feedback in EFL class and discuss its implications on EFL students’ writing. Furthermore, the paper provides an overview of the most widely-used screencast software in educational settings and concludes with some practical guidelines for the effective implementation of screencast technology.

A novel approach: Simulating multiple simultaneous encounters to assess multitasking ability in emergency medicine

Study objective The purpose of this feasibility study is to develop and validate a new assessment tool and scoring system for multitasking competency for physicians in-training in a timed simulated setting. The multitasking competency includes ability to appropriately prioritize and implement tasks for different patients who present simultaneously. Methods We designed three single task stations with different levels of difficulty and priority. These skill stations were then combined to create a multitasking simulation scenario. Skill checklists and the global rating scale were utilized to assess the participants’ performance. A multitasking score, multitasking index, and priority score were developed to measure the multitasking ability of participants. Results Thirty-three first-year postgraduate physicians were recruited for this prospective study. The total performance scores were significantly higher for the single-tasking stations than for the multitasking scenario. In terms of the time needed to complete the tasks, the participants spent more time on the multitasking scenario than on the single-tasking scenario. There were significant correlations between the global rating scale and the multitasking score (rho = 0.693, p < 0.001) and between the global rating scale and the multitasking index (rho = 0.515, p < 0.001). The multitasking score, multitasking index, and priority score did not have any significant correlations with the total single-tasking score. Conclusion We demonstrated that the use of a simulated multitasking scenario could be an effective method of assessing multitasking ability and allow assessors to offer better quality feedback.

Real-Time Air Quality Feedback in Children’s Bedrooms Increases Compliance with Indoor Air Guidelines

Air particle monitors were placed in the children's bedrooms in 298 homes. We examined whether outfitting these monitors with immediate auditory and visual stimuli plus weekly coaching increased the probability of establishing a smoke-free home, operationalized by at least single instance of 30 consecutive days below the WHO 25 ug/m3 guideline.

Exploring attributes of high-quality clinical supervision in general practice through interviews with peer-recognised GP supervisors

Background Clinical supervision in general practice is critical for enabling registrars (GP trainees) to provide safe medical care, develop skills and enjoy primary care careers. However, this largely depends on the quality of supervision provided. There has been limited research describing what encompasses quality within GP clinical supervision, making it difficult to promote best practice. This study aimed to explore the attributes of high-quality clinical supervision for GP registrars. Methods In 2019–20, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with GP supervisors who were peer-nominated as best practice supervisors, by Regional GP Training Organisations and GP Colleges in Australia. Purposeful sampling sought respondents with diverse characteristics including gender and career stage, practice size, state/territory and rurality. Interviews were conducted by video-consultation and recorded. De-identified transcripts were independently coded using iterative, inductive thematic analyses to derive themes that reflected quality in GP supervision. Results Seven themes emerged. Participants understood the meaning of quality supervision based on their experience of being supervised when they were a registrar, and from reflecting and learning from other supervisors and their own supervision experiences. Quality was reflected by actively structuring GP placements to optimise all possible learning opportunities, building a secure and caring relationship with registrars as the basis for handling challenging situations such as registrar mistakes. Quality also encompassed sustaining and enhancing registrar learning by drawing on the input of the whole practice team who had different skills and supervision approaches. Strong learner-centred approaches were used, where supervisors adjusted support and intervention in real-time, as registrar competence emerged in different areas. Quality also involved building the registrar’s professional identity and capabilities for safe and independent decision-making and encouraging registrars to reflect on situations before giving quality feedback, to drive learning. Conclusions This study, although exploratory, provides a foundation for understanding the quality of clinical supervision in general practice, from the perspective of peer-recognised GP supervisors. Understanding and adopting quality within GP supervision may be improved by GPs sharing exemplars of best practice and having opportunities for professional reflection. The findings could be used as a point of reference for devising GP supervisor curriculum, resources and professional development activities.