Integration and assessment of critical outcomes in a learning programme for first-year medical students

English: It is currently a time of great change throughout medical education, as well as in the wider higher education context within which it operates. The problems generated by changed approaches to the delivery of curricula need to be addressed in innovative ways if educational outcomes of a high quality are to be ensured. Critical inquiry into one's own teaching practice is one of the most significant ways in which this goal may be achieved. The purpose of this study was to improve the integration and assessment of critical outcomes in the first year of the Programme for Professional Medicine, currently conducted at the UFS School of Medicine. The focal point of the research was Module MEA 112, which has the development of general skills as its theme, with a view to giving effect to the government and public demand to equip students at all levels of their higher education careers with employment-related, lifelong learning skills. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that took place in Module MEA112 over a period of three years, an action research was adopted. This means that actions taken were critically explored, evidence was gathered and perceptions were considered in order to develop an understanding of how critical outcomes could best be integrated and assessed within the parameters of the firstyear of the Programme for Professional Medicine. Features of the original Module MEA112 that demanded modification were pinpointed (cf. Chapter Seven); changes were described, and finally, the lessons learned were reflected on, with a view to re-planning and improvement of practice (cf. Chapter Eight and Chapter Nine). Three cycles of action research were completed. In Cycle One (1999-2000), the focus was on the design and implementation of a purpose-built module on general skills development that would be appropriate for the UFS School of Medicine context. The inference was drawn that the original model should be further contextualised to help students to see the relevance of general skills in a medical leaming programme; and that general skills development should form an integral part of core modules and not be confined to a stand-alone period of orientation. In Cycle Two (2000-2001), the potential for close collaboration between subject and skills specialists, with a view to encouraging the development of general skills inherent in performing authentic discipline-related tasks, was explored. The idea that a professional healthcare practitioner should be able to appraise her own work and that of others - a skill that is at the centre of professional medical practice - was instilled by introducing students to self- and peer assessment. The introduction of this skill at a relatively early stage of their study careers was premised on the belief that students should be skilled in the habits and attitudes that prepare them for a student-centered curriculum; for functioning as lifelong learners in their future careers, and also as responsible citizens, while they are still receptive to such influences. In Cycle Three (2001-2002), the difficulties associated with the incorporation of skills development in core modules and the evolution of alternative forms of assessment formed the focal points. Efforts to establish a portfolio-based assessment system featured most prominently, in furtherance of the idea that assessment strategies should reflect the educational aims of an outcomes-based learning programme. context. The inference was drawn that the original model should be further contextualised to help students to see the relevance of general skills in a medical leaming programme; and that general skills development should form an integral part of core modules and not be confined to a stand-alone period of orientation. In Cycle Two (2000-2001), the potential for close collaboration between subject and skills specialists, with a view to encouraging the development of general skills inherent in performing authentic discipline-related tasks, was explored. The idea that a professional healthcare practitioner should be able to appraise her own work and that of others - a skill that is at the centre of professional medical practice - was instilled by introducing students to self- and peer assessment. The introduction of this skill at a relatively early stage of their study careers was premised on the belief that students should be skilled in the habits and attitudes that prepare them for a student-centered curriculum; for functioning as lifelong learners in their future careers, and also as responsible citizens, while they are still receptive to such influences. The value of the research rests on its emancipatory nature in the sense that it helped to redefine the relatively narrow boundaries that were initially set for general skills development in 1999. In reporting the evolutionary process, credibility was pursued by documenting actions and their outcomes in a rigorous and systematic manner; and by giving an honest, autobiographical narrative on the laborious process of improvement.