Making connections within Dental Educational Research globally

Posted on 21 September, 2016 by Susanne

A number of academics from Newcastle Dental School recently attended the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) conference in Seoul, Korea, giving us the opportunity to network with dental academics from around the world. A particularly inspiring part of the conference was our engagement with the Education Research Group of IADR, who are leading dental education research globally. Attendance at their lectures was both inspiring, but also encouraging to see how advanced we are in this field. James Field, Richard Holmes and myself attended their business meeting and are likely to become engaged with the organisation of next years meeting in San Francisco. It was fantastic to see Newcastle so well represented at this meeting and our ideas and enthusiasm for dental education so welcomed and encouraged by peers across the globe.

Dr Sarah Rolland

Photo L-R: James Field, Sarah Rolland, Angus Walls, Rebecca Wassell,Richard Homes

“Just a GP”: Active denigration (badmouthing) of General Practice as a career choice

Posted on 21 September, 2016 by Susanne

The problem
There is currently a national General Practitioner (GP) recruitment crisis with only half of GP trainee places in some areas being taken. Many influences are known to affect students’ and young doctors’ career choice; one such influence is their clinical teachers. It has been suggested and there is anecdotal evidence that negative comments may be made to students and young teachers towards a career choice of General Practice but little robust evidence exists.
Approach
We conducted an explorative, qualitative study asking groups of GP trainees about comments made to them, both positive and negative, by all clinical teachers, towards their stated choice of General Practice as a career. New GP trainees from the two largest training programmes in the Northern region (HENE), where the recruitment crisis is particularly acute, were invited to participate. Six focus groups were undertaken within the trainees current study groups using a semi-structured question format. Full transcripts of the focus groups were thematically analysed by the research team.
Findings
Active denigration of General Practice as a career is evident though not consistent to all participants and is seen as a generic, ‘cultural’ issue in the hospital setting. A recurring theme was the notion of trainees becoming “just a GP” and interestingly some participants found themselves also using this phrase. A GP career was noted by some hospital clinicians to be a “cop out” for the “easy life” and trainees were told they were “wasted as a GP” or “too good to be a GP”. Conversely, some participants noted positive comments centring around it being a good choice for those wanting a family and a good work/life balance. Other participants perceived their hospital clinical teachers to be promoting their own specialities rather than demoting General Practice. Comments from General Practitioners were mixed with some being notable encouraging role models but others making negative comments about the current workload and stress involved. Participants broadly perceived that the negative comments they heard had not influenced their own career choice but may have led to their colleagues not following a career in General Practice.
Consequences
Our findings disturbingly support the anecdotal evidence that active denigration of General Practice as a career choice does exist in the hospital setting in our region. We would strongly recommend that further explorative work and quantitative surveys are undertaken to explore the extent to which these findings are confirmed and to what extent they are discouraging students and trainees from following a career in GP. Badmouthing of General Practice as a career must be addressed urgently as a discriminatory issue.

Joanna Hall
Kym Merritt
Hugh Alberti
Newcastle Medical School
Presented at SPAC national conference, July 2016

School of Dental Sciences on European stage

Posted on 21 September, 2016 by Susanne

Staff from the School of Dental Sciences have taken leading roles within the Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE), chairing three of its Special Interest Groups that bring together educators from across Europe and beyond to encourage collaboration and promote standards.

During the 2016 congress in Barcelona, 24-27 August 2016, Newcastle staff chaired the following Special Interest Groups:

Clinical Skills Teaching – James Field
General Medicine and Surgery in Dentistry – Mark Greenwood
Monitoring & Assessment of UG Endodontology – John Whitworth

SIG Clinical Skills Teaching

This was a very busy and productive session discussing current practice across Europe. Newcastle Dental School was well represented by Iad Gharib presenting on the relationship between teacher perceptions of pre-clinical dental student professionalism and patient satisfaction and Sarah Rolland, there on behalf of the British Dental Association. Paul Miller (Newcastle School of Education) presented on the use of a Video Observation tool to enhance clinical teaching.

SIG Monitoring & Assessment in UG Endodontology

Now in its third year, this SIG, chaired by John Whitworth in collaboration with the European Society of Endodontology, continued its work to harmonise assessment in Endodontology at the point of graduation, and to begin work on the development of case-based teaching resources to support schools in delivering the Undergraduate Curriculum Guidelines for Endodontology (International Endodontic Journal 2013).

There are plans for a series of workshops and the SIG will be hosting a half-day event at the ADEE annual congress in Vilnius, August 2017.

Prof John Whitworth, School of Dental Sciences

1st year students’ perceptions of feedback

Posted on 21 September, 2016 by Susanne

NSS results have a significant impact on an institution’s reputation, and this will escalate with the introduction of the TES. Although many universities are shown to give satisfaction across most categories the scores for “Feedback and Assessment” are markedly lower. Much research has been carried out into feedback, but there is little evidence to explain this dissatisfaction. In an attempt to uncover underlying causes I am carrying out a study to investigate “First-Year Students’ Perceptions of Feedback”, to find out their expectations.

The first stage of the study was to find out what Newcastle students think feedback is, what they perceive it should be and how this relates to their previous experiences and general ‘contentment’. Enlisting the help of a student interviewer through the Newcastle Work Experience Scheme, 15 student to student interviews were conducted to build up a thematic understanding of the subject. From these themes a questionnaire of 37 questions was constructed, piloted, modified and distributed.

We got 110 responses (approximately 33% response rate). Initial analysis suggests the university feedback experience is very different to their previous experience of feedback, and although some understand the pedagogical and pragmatic reasons they are not left ‘satisfied’.

I’ve recently presented these initial findings at the Oxford University Press Bioscience Education Summit. Although the focus to date has been students at Newcastle University, we’re set to roll out this study to include other North East institutions.

Dr Damian Parry, School of Biomedical Sciences

Director’s update: Summer 2016

Posted on 27 June, 2016 by Susanne

We are approaching the end of another academic year and the programme of events and activities for the ERDP Unit. So, first of all I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to our events programme through presentations at Journal Clubs, presenting at or helping to organise Faculty Learning and Teaching Fora or in any other ways including simply attending events. The strength of the Unit is very much dependent upon the contributions from its members and I am pleased that people are so willing to give up time to contribute to or help organise events and also that attendance at our events remains so strong. Next year sees the introduction of a new series of seminars organised by Jane Stewart “What I mean when I say”. These seminars promise to be engaging with plenty of active discussion. If you have ideas for future topics Jane will be pleased to hear from you.

Another way members of the Unit have been contributing is by sending us well-framed and focussed applications for funding from our ERDP small grants scheme. We were very pleased at the high standards of the applications received in the last round and look forward to hearing from the successful applicants as they progress their projects. We were also pleased to be able to fund requests for funding for Study Visits including requests for travel to Complutense University, Madrid Dental School and Harvard Medical School and we wish all our Study Visit applicants fruitful and stimulating trips.

As you can see from other reports in this newsletter projects already funded are starting to bear fruit. We do encourage successful applicants to disseminate the results of their work in appropriate ways. This could simply be by presentation at a local event but it could also involve presentation at external events or through publication and we are very keen that applicants take every opportunity to publish externally. This will help you by telling the outside world what you are doing, helping you to develop external learning and teaching networks and it will also raise the profile of the Faculty as a centre of teaching excellence. Several people have sent us details of recent publications and I would ask everybody who succeeds in getting work published in L&T Journals to let us know so that we can showcase your work. Just send the details to fms.educational.research@newcastle.ac.uk.

We are also approaching the time of summer conferences and so if you are going to any event this summer and can spare the time please write us a short meeting report highlighting what you felt were the key contributions at your conference and what you learnt from attending.

One final point about dissemination and that is to draw your attention to the BERA blog. This is a great way to let people in the education field know about what you are doing and Rachel Lofthouse in ECLS will be glad to advise you if you are thinking of posting something here.

Let me end by wishing everybody a good summer. These days summer vacations seem to be filled with ever more activities beyond the UCAS results being announced in mid-August but I hope you will all be able to make time for enough annual leave to recharge batteries in time for the start of another academic year.

Prof Steve McHanwell, Director, FMS Unit for ERDP

Self-affirmation to boost student resilience?

Posted on 24 June, 2016 by Susanne

Student resilience plays a pivotal role in both student satisfaction and academic performance (Mahmoud, et al., 2012). Educators are increasingly met with students who seem to be poorly equipped to deal with setbacks, and see feedback as a personal critique, not a critique of the work they have produced (Gray, 2015). This seems to create a barrier for students to take on board the feedback given.

ERiP plans

The School of Psychology’s Educational Research in Psychology (ERiP) group is launching a number of projects looking at addressing this issue, one project will explore the potential of self-affirmation as a means to boost resilience when receiving feedback.

Self-affirmation theory

Students’ academic capabilities are a key component of their self-concept (Baumeister, 1999), even more so for the large proportion of our undergraduates who arrive as straight A students. Therefore, when students’ marks and feedback at university deviate from this, a central aspect of their self-concept is threatened.

Self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) proposes that people are attentive to threats to their sense of competence and process information defensively when they experience a threat to that personal value (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). This may explain why some students down play the accuracy of the feedback they receive. However, affirming an important, unrelated aspect of the self has been shown to reduce resistance and enhance the uptake of subsequent recommendations.

Self-affirmation has been shown to increase the performance of women in male dominated disciplines such as physics (Miyake, et al., 2010). It has reduced the racial achievement gap amongst Black and White students by 40% (Cohen et al., 2006). Koole, et al., (1999) also demonstrated that self-affirmation can reduce ruminative thoughts following failure feedback.

For more information please contact amy.fielden@ncl.ac.uk.

ASME Small Grant Success

Posted on 23 June, 2016 by Susanne

We have been funded by ASME through the Small Grant Award Scheme to undertake a multi-centre qualitative study to explore the motivations of General Practitioners teaching undergraduate medical students in primary care.

General Practitioners have become a fundamental aspect of teaching in modern medical school curricula with the average amount of teaching in primary care in UK medical schools now at 13-14%. There are calls for this to increase with the move of more patient care into the community. Capacity for undergraduate General Practice (GP) placements is now a serious challenge for many medical schools with practices facing competing demands from service, and expansion of postgraduate training activity, alongside a reported GP recruitment crisis.

The study will be a qualitative, explorative, study involving semi-structured interviews with 6-8 GP teachers from each of five medical schools (Brighton&Sussex, Keele, Lancaster, Newcastle and UCL) led by myself and our clinical teaching fellows. The aim is to identify the barriers and facilitators to GPs teaching medical students in the UK, in order to increase the recruitment of GPs teaching in current and future medical school curricula. The results will be available by early next year in time to inform the new Newcastle MBBS curriculum which is expected to include a significant increase of teaching in primary care.

Dr Hugh Alberti, School of Medical Education

Student vs Staff

Posted on 22 June, 2016 by Susanne

Prof Janice Ellis (SDS) and Daniel Mall, a 4th year BDS student were interviewed by Hazel Davis for the spring 2016 issue of BDJ Student. Although the interviews were done independently, both focussed on the same positive theme of how passionate and engaged our staff are and how there is a real sense of community within the School of Dentistry here at Newcastle. All positive stuff!

If you have a log in you can read the full article via https://bdjstudent.co.uk/

Find a voice through the BERA blog?

Posted on 22 June, 2016 by Susanne

If you are engaged in research or enquiry related to education you might be interested in contributing to the British Educational Research Association multi-authored blog. You can find the link at https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog.

As one of the blog editors I am a strong advocate of this forum as a means of scholarly communication and would be happy to talk to anyone who might be tempted to write for us. If you take a look at a few blog posts you will realise that they are diverse in style, theme and authorship.

At present Newcastle University’s ECLS is one of the best represented academic schools on the BERA blog, with posts from both staff and students. Our presence in this social media has supported our profile, with colleagues being asked to keynote or join research activities as a result. Sometimes our blogs have been summaries of published papers, sometimes they are part of the writing process for new papers, and sometimes they have simply allowed us to ‘get it out there’ – when an idea seems critical and could be shared.

The following examples illustrate some of the types of blog that you might feel able to write:

discuss research methods and methodology
disseminate research outcomes of funded and unfunded research
offer thematic commentaries pulling together expertise from both teaching and research
distil key research findings from PhDs
ask the big questions affecting our disciplines

So – what about you?

There are several aspects of work that would be relevant. As indicated above we are interested in posts related to research methods. Could you capture approaches that you have used to research pedagogy, curriculum or student experience? We are interested in issues pertinent to Higher Education, and more discussion around professional education, internationalisation or the impact of policy changes in H.E., for example, would be welcomed. We are interested in research related to innovation as well as the continual knotty issues such as technology enhanced learning, feedback, meeting student expectations.

Each blog post is a maximum of 750 words, they can be single or co-authored and can be re-published on your own blog sites (personal or institutional) under the Creative Commons agreement and I can advise on drafts as well as be your gatekeeper to the editorial review team. Why not give it a go? And if nothing else please remind Steve McHanwell that he keeps promising me a submission!

Dr Rachel Lofthouse, ECLS, Rachel.Lofthouse@ncl.ac.uk

ERDP Development Grants funded April 2016

Posted on 22 June, 2016 by Susanne

We’re pleased to announce that the following projects have been funded in the latest ERDP Development Grant call.

Graduate School

‘Introduction and evaluation of voice thread software in facilitating student feedback in 3 online masters programmes’ Dr Jenny Yeo, Mrs Lynne Rawles, Miss Eleanor Lockheart, Miss Victoria Petrie.

School of Biomedical Sciences

‘Inclusive research with students and members of the public: How can we best evaluate innovative teaching about ageing?’ Dr Ellen Tullo, Dr Laura Greaves, Dr Luisa Wakeling, Prof Rose Gilroy.

School of Dental Sciences

‘A study visit to develop teaching teeth carving to enhance the learning of tooth morphology for dental students’ Dr Bana Abdulmohsen.

‘Scoping Exercise to develop a 3-D printing facility within the School of Dental Sciences’ Dr Iad Gharib, Dr James Field, Dr Simon Stone, Dr Andrew Keeling (Leeds), Mrs Cecilie Osnes, (Leeds), Dr Graham Davis (Queen Mary).

‘Developing public engagement in the quality assurance of teaching programmes’ Dr Janice Ellis, Mrs Zoe Freeman, Dr Richard Holmes, Dr Paula Waterhouse, Dr Sarah Rolland.

‘Leading the pan-European development of curricula within Dental Sciences’ Dr James Field, Professor Damien Walmsley (ADEE), Professor Andreas Schulte (Organisation for Caries Research), Professor Julia Davies, (Malmo University), Professor Cristina Manzanares Cespedes (University of Barcelona), Professor Corrado Paganelli (University of Brescia).

‘What are the benefits of a UK-USA educational initiative and visit programme for dental students?’ Dr Richard Holmes & Dr Paula Waterhouse.

School of Medical Education

‘Longitudinal integrated medical student placements: A study visit to Harvard medical school to inform the new Newcastle medical school curriculum’ Dr Hugh Alberti & Dr Steve Jones.

‘The Research Journey: using digistories to unveil the hidden process’ Dr Laura Delgaty, Mrs Lynne Rawles, Mr Marc Bennett, Ms Linda Errington, Mrs Erika Gavillet.