Redefining Quality in Medical Education Research: A Consumer's View

摘要

Editor's Note: The online version of this article contains a list of medical education articles from literature review, survey of medical educators, and workshop description in AAMC brochure, and facilitator script.;Introduction The number of submissions, published articles, and journals focusing on medical education research has exploded in the past decade. This increase has made the process of selecting articles for publication more difficult for reviewers and editors who aim to disseminate high-quality studies that have the greatest potential to affect educational practice. A growing number of studies and editorials have cited a lack of methodologic rigor while exhorting medical education researchers to improve study quality.1–8 The frameworks used to define quality work typically reflect the perspectives of those who actively engage in medical education research—the producers.1–5,8,9 Although some people who identify primarily as researchers also teach and some who identify primarily as educators also perform medical education research, many key end users of education research are “clinician educators,” such as program directors and clerkship directors. Indexes used to rate the quality of medical education research have not emphasized the consumer perspective as part of the instrument development process.9–13 Given their multiple responsibilities, clinician educators have a limited amount of time to read outside their clinical specialty.14,15 A better understanding of the end user's perspective would help researchers design and present studies that are more likely to be read and implemented by the end user. Relevant questions to ascertain the end users' perspectives include the following: Do medical educators routinely read articles in education-focused journals? Which articles are most valued and most likely to be applied in practice? How do educators define overall quality in medical education research?;Methods To obtain educator stakeholders' perspectives on medical education research quality and value, Journal of Graduate Medical Education (JGME) editors performed (1) a background literature review, (2) a national survey of clinician educators, and (3) a consensus-building workshop at the November 2013 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) annual meeting. Literature Review To provide background material for workshop planning, a JGME editor (G.M.S.) performed a comprehensive literature search for articles relevant to the definition of medical education quality. Using PubMed, Google Scholar, and ERIC, the editor searched for articles published between January 1, 2000, and October 10, 2013, and combinations of the following terms: medical education research quality, quality of medical education research, educational research, medical education research, and quality in research in medical education. The editor further searched for publications by the first authors of articles identified by the aforementioned searches to identify additional relevant work within the time period and asked JGME editors to recommend relevant publications. Twenty-seven relevant articles were identified: 4 introduced quality indexes; 8 were systematic reviews of the quality of existing research; and 15 were narrative reviews, commentaries, or editorials evaluating the state of medical education research (see online supplemental material for a list of articles).;Results The online survey generated responses from 110 educators and researchers. The total number of survey recipients is unknown but the number is likely greater than the 10?000 program directors and designated institutional officials who receive the ACGME weekly e-mail. Of the 110 respondents, 83 (75%) read medical education journals at least monthly, and only 8 (7%) rarely or never read medical education journals. Respondents indicated that the journals they “read or skim regularly” include JGME (88 [85%]), Academic Medicine (71 [65%]), and Medical Education (25 [24%]). The m