BMERG Blog

An ABCDE to Getting Started with Medical Education Research

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

In this blog Sarah Allsop, a Senior Lecturer at Bristol Medical School, shares a short 5-point top tip guide to getting started in medical education research.

Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash

It was great today to be able to extend a warm welcome to the new intake of Clinical Teaching Fellows (CTFs) working across the NHS Trusts linked to the University of Bristol Medical School, and introduce them to the work of BMERG.

CTFs are not only fantastic teachers and innovators, but also undertake some amazing medical education research projects. Bristol’s recent posters and oral presentations at both AoME and ASME is testament to this, with AMEE still to come at the end of August.

For new CTFs, and in fact anyone starting out undertaking research projects in education, this may be a new task and one which can seem quite daunting. Developing skills in educational research is a journey.

Here is a short 5-point ABCDE guide of top tips for getting started in Education Research – a place to start when you are not sure where to start.

A is for Aim: What are you trying to achieve? What problem are you trying to solve? What is the VALUE of your project? All research projects should start with an aim. Having a clear aim will then help to guide your next steps, study design and methods.

B is for Blueprint: How are you going to blueprint / plan your study? What research paradigm will you use? How will you use educational THEORY to aid the design of your project? What methodology aligns with your research question(s)? What do you need to prepare for your ethical review? Planning your project carefully and considering the alignment of the different elements of your study will ultimately lead to a better quality research project.

C is for Collaborate: Can you work collaboratively to build a stronger, more powerful project? Are there already projects in motion that you can join or build on? How can you work and support each other better? What interdisciplinary angles might be possible? We are stronger together. Talk to your peers and seniors about research projects. You may have ideas of your own that you wish to progress and that is fine, but if these align with the ideas of others, or you can build on previous studies, or try innovations across multiple sites or cohorts, this will improve the POWER and transferability of your work.

D is for Disseminate: How would you like to present or publish your work? Do you want to attend an international medical education or discipline specific conference or publish in a peer-reviewed journal? Would you like to be able to showcase your work across the wider local medical school community? One of the key principle aims of all research is to further knowledge and this means that we need to share our findings. Think about your REACH and influence – where, when and how you might like to share your educational research project results.

E is for Endpoint: What is the potential IMPACT of your study? Who might benefit from learning about your results? What are your personal goals? It may sound counter-intuitive to think about the end-point at the start of your journey, but this will help you to plan and develop a timeline. You will always have finite time to work on a particular project and so understanding your goals and being mindful about what is possible will help you to create the deadlines you need to keep your project on track.

Over the coming months BMERG will be sharing more top tips on undertaking educational research, as well as offering events such as journal clubs, writing groups and more. Subscribe to the blog to get all the latest BMERG news direct to your inbox.

Read more about Bristol conference work this summer at AoME 2023 and ASME 2023

BMERG News: Bristol Clinical Teaching Fellows based at Gloucester Academy win the ASME oral TEL SIG ASM Communications Prize 2023

Posted on by sarah.allsop

BMERG is really pleased and proud to share that Bristol’s Alice Middleton, Carys Gilbert, Philippa Dodd & Isabel Rimmer, from our Gloucester Academy at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust have been awarded the Technology Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group Annual Scholarship Meeting Oral Presentation Prize for their presentation,

“Low-Tech, High-Yield; the utility of virtual patients using simple presentation software“

A massive congratulations to the team on their presentation and work. You can read their winning abstract below and read more at: www.asme.org.uk/awards/tel-asm-prize-2023/#winners

TEL-AS-COMMS-PRIZE-2023-ORAL-WINNER

Read Ed Luffs Blog and Report on the ASME Scholarship Meeting here.

Conference Report: ASME Annual Scholarship Meeting 12-14th July 2023, Birmingham UK

Posted on by sarah.allsop

“Developing a Diverse Workforce“

Continuing our conference report theme, Dr Ed Luff reflects on the Association for the Study of Medical Education Conference recently held in Birmingham, UK.

The Eastside Rooms Conference Centre, Birmingham UK

The 12th-14th of July brought the return of the Annual Scholarship Meeting (ASM) of the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME), which took place at the Eastside Rooms conference centre in Birmingham. The three-day programme of events saw representation from a wide range of attendees from Bristol Medical School and the Academies, presenting work at a national-level medical education conference. Presenters came from all areas within the school, from professors and lecturers to medical students and clinical teaching fellows (CTFs) to MSc and PhD students, showcasing the wide range of work conducted around medical education within Bristol Medical School.

Once again, this year Bristol was extremely well represented at the conference, with contributions comprising 2 workshops, 15 oral presentations and 29 poster presentations, which exceeded the high bar set at last year’s conference. Huge congratulations to all those who were involved in presenting, authoring, and contributing to the work that was presented, it really highlights the excellent and high-quality work that is being conducted both locally and regionally. Work was presented by academics from within the medical school, those based at academies around the region, including both North and South Bristol, Bath, Gloucester & Cheltenham, and Swindon, as well as current undergraduate medical students and doctors completing their MSc in Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals (TLHP) and PhD.

The range of topics and areas of the curriculum covered by presenters from Bristol ranged from paediatrics to palliative care, professionalism to research paradigms, interprofessional learning and simulations on Boeing 747’s, transgender and non-binary healthcare, and gamification of sexual health. Many presentations highlighted collaboration both within the medical school, across different academies and hospital sites, as well as with outside organisations and other institutions and healthcare professionals.

This year also saw the inclusion of a new presentation format at the conference, the ‘What’s Your Point?’ sessions, where presenters were invited to start a conversation and present on a topic of interest or debate. We had a thought-provoking oral presentation on the future of medical educators, and poster presentations on classical cases/ typical presentations, promoting interprofessional education, a professionalism reporting system and engagement with teaching innovations.

ASME as a conference provides a wonderfully welcoming and inclusive environment to inspire, engage and network. It is friendly and accessible, with sessions covering the full spectrum of medical education, from admissions and widening access, through undergraduate, foundation years, and postgraduate training. There really is something for everyone and the wide range of parallel ‘pre-conference’ and ‘intra-conference’ sessions, symposia and workshops provide an opportunity for attendees to build skills and develop in areas of personal interest.

Dr Alice Middleton, CTF co-lead, based at Gloucester Academy, reflected on her experiences from the conference:

“I presented about using virtual patients to teach clinical reasoning, and was encouraged by queries and enthusiasm about the project from members of the Technology Enhanced Learning ‘TEL’ special interest group of ASME – I have joined them! I also attended the TASME prize presentation session and talked to one of the presenters after the session, we have since been emailing about potentially collaborating on a project about teaching clinical reasoning which is exciting; it was a great opportunity to link up and learn from people doing similar-but-different things in other medical schools in the UK.”

Dr Sam Chumbley, a CTF based at South Bristol Academy commented:

“This was my first ever conference, and who knew they could be so fun?! I met so many like-minded people, and everyone commented on how approachable everyone is it ASME. You can be asking a presenter a question after their talk, and then sharing a meal with them later that day. The talks were fascinating, with a heavy focus on EDI topics this year, which has empowered me to speak up when seeing colleagues or patients being discriminated. Other talks focused on topics like innovation in education, which is always exciting to hear about, and has made me less terrified of the advent of AI in education. Ultimately, ASME has set the bar very high for future conferences I will attend!”

To showcase the amazing contributions made by those within the medical school, we have created a Sway which contains information about all the work presented by those associated with Bristol Medical School.* You can view summaries of the two workshops, copies of the abstracts for the oral and poster presentations and electronic versions of all the posters too. Access the sway via this link: BRMS at ASME 2023. A collated Bristol abstracts booklet can be viewed here:

ASME-BRMS-Abstract-Booklet-2023-1

The full ASME 2023 conference brochure can be downloaded here: ASME 2023 brochure. The conference brochure contains detailed information on keynote speakers, pre and intra-conference sessions including symposia and pop-up events, parallel sessions and oral presentations. The abstracts book can be downloaded here: ASME 2023 Abstracts book. The abstracts book contains details of all abstracts included at the ASM 2023. Each individual abstract has its own page including information on the authors and presenters. This includes submissions for e-Posters, oral presentations, relevant awards, and What’s Your Point? sessions. For information about joining ASME visit: www.asme.org.uk/membership/.  

Next year’s ASM will be held in Warwick, from the 10th-12th of July 2024, with the theme ‘Maximising Potential’. We hope that next year will bring further success for Bristol Medical School at ASME. We are also looking forward to the AMEE conference, which this year is being held in Glasgow from the 26th to the 30th of August. The best of luck to everyone who is presenting.

* We have done our best to ensure that all work presented at this event has been included here, but if you think we have missed yours and you would like it added, please get in touch.

Read Sarah Allsop’s Conference report on the June 2023 AOME-INHWE Conference here

Hot Topics: Medical Education Research – Why, How, Why and What

Posted on by sarah.allsop

In the next of our hot topic blogs, Dr Fiona Holmes from our BMERG committee talks about what actually defines a ‘Hot topic’ in Medical Education, and the importance of thinking about why and how we find out about what’s new and upcoming in our discipline.

 

Photo by Guido Jansen on Unsplash

While I was thinking about what to discuss, I realised that what I think is a hot topic might be just lukewarm to other people. We are all driven by different interests, experiences, and priorities.

In the hope of finding relevant and interesting subjects I started by looking into why a topic is hot, how they are identified and why this is important (which links back to why a topic is hot). This led me to what main areas of medical education are currently widely considered to be hot, and we look forward to exploring some of these in more depth in future hot topic blogs.

Why are topics considered ‘hot’?

Hot topics are influenced by various social and cultural contexts and needs, and may be hot because they are:

  • Relevant
  • Controversial
  • Timely
  • Impactful
  • Novel

Within medical education, and by extension pedagogical research in this field, there are a wide range of factors that have been identified to contribute to hotness:

  • Advancements in knowledge and technology: It has been estimated that new medical information doubles every 73 days. What and how to teach and the evaluation of learning needs to keep pace with these developments. How to prepare students to deal with such rapid developments and to be life-long learners is also a priority. Advances in technology for teaching and learning as well as the practice of medicine are transforming healthcare and its education. Adapting education to these technological changes will ensure future healthcare professionals are prepared to utilise these tools effectively.

  • Patient-centred care: With ever-changing healthcare needs and demographics, education research is needed to address the teaching of emerging health concerns, population health management, and the needs of diverse patient populations. This is twinned with a need for more consideration of patients’ values, preferences, and needs when making healthcare decisions therefore effective education in communication skills, empathy, cultural competence, and shared decision-making.

  • Interprofessional collaboration: Effective co-training of different healthcare professionals to foster teamwork skills to prepare students for collaborative healthcare environments.

  • Accreditation, regulation, stakeholder input: Accreditation bodies and regulatory agencies may revise guidelines to promote quality, safety, and innovation in medical education, prompting educational institutions to adapt their curricula accordingly. Such changes can drive research in this area. Likewise, public expectations, patient advocacy, and input from stakeholders (e.g., healthcare providers, patients, policymakers) play a role in shaping medical education and its research. These can influence curriculum content, teaching methods, and the overall educational experience.

  • Global health and environmental challenges: Global health issues, such as pandemics, emerging infectious diseases, health disparities, as well as environmental contexts highlight the need for a globally competent healthcare workforce. Medical education is addressing these challenges by incorporating global health content, cross-cultural training, and exposure to international healthcare systems.

Then of course there is medical education research itself and the innovation and design that comes with sharing evidence-based practice. This contributes to the evolution of medical education by identifying effective teaching methods, assessment tools, and strategies for continued professional development and aiming to ensure that innovation is beneficial.

How do hot topics get identified and become ‘hot’?

You may initially think that hot topics are simply those that are most prevalent in the current medical education journals, and this may well be true. Most things move in cycles and there are often trends for the types of issues that we see and trends in the solutions implemented. But, when you think about it, how do we find out what is prevalent or ‘trending’ at any given time?

There are number of ways to identify recurring themes, emerging topics and changes in research focus and involve both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and there is some overlap in the methods used. Examples include:

  • Literature review:  The systematic search, selection, and evaluation of relevant studies.
  • Bibliometric analysis: Analysis of publication and citation patterns over time to provide insight into the volume of research, popular topics, influential authors, and collaborations within the field.
  • Content analysis: Systematically categorise and analyse the content of research articles, conference proceedings to identify patterns and trends in research articles, social media discussions and online forums.
  • Surveys/questionnaires: Analysis of perceptions and attitudes of educational practices and emerging trends.
  • Interviews/focus groups: In-depth exploration of topics and contextual information.

Let’s look at an example:

Ji et al (2018) used social network analysis to identify changing trends in medical education and interpreted their findings to suggest 5 eras of medical education:

Figure. Ji et al Eras of medical education research

They determined that “during the 53-year period studied, medical education research has been subdivided and has expanded, improved, and changed along with shifts in society’s needs.” By analysing the trends they determined that medical education is forming a sense of the ‘voluntary order’ within the field and establishing legitimacy and originality. (Ji et al (2018) Research topics and trends in medical education by social network analysis | BMC Medical Education | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)).

So, why do we need to know about hot topics?

Hot topic research is important to ensure that medical education remains dynamic, responsive, and aligned with the evolving demands of the healthcare field and the needs of the learner. It supports the continuous improvement of medical education, leading to better-prepared healthcare professionals and ultimately improved patient outcomes.

Identifying hot topics helps time-limited researchers and educators stay informed about the latest trends, innovations, and challenges in medical knowledge, education and assessment practices to enhance teaching and learning methods, and to focus efforts on areas that require attention. This can then inform curriculum development and promote evidence-based practices.

Sharing hot topic research also helps to foster collaboration and networking among those with shared interests, leading to the exchange of ideas and development of research networks. As this grows, this helps institutions and funders prioritise and allocate resources by identifying areas of high research interest and impact. This is particularly important in identifying areas of medical education that are under-researched or require further attention.

What is hot right now?

Here are 8 of the hottest topics currently shaping medical education research in 2023:

  • Technology in education: Virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Digital tools to engage with, filter and disseminate information that are interactive, efficient, and individualised.

  • Experiential and simulation-based learning: Through VR and AR, standardised patients, manikins, clinical scenarios to allow students to practice complex procedures and decision-making in a safe and controlled environment, improving their skills, confidence and safety.

  • Interdisciplinary education and team-based learning: Students from various healthcare disciplines learn about, from and with each other collaboratively. Case-based discussions and interprofessional simulations and debriefing, allow students to develop the skills needed to function in teams. It improves patient outcomes and enhances healthcare delivery and professional satisfaction by encouraging mutual respect, understanding, and effective communication.

  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion: Recruitment and retention of students from diverse backgrounds so that the healthcare profession better represents the patient population. Educating students in culturally appropriate care practices and social determinants of health. Learning environments to promote respect for diverse perspectives and equality of opportunities.

  • Competency-based education: Teaching and assessing ability to perform specific tasks and skills rather than relying solely on traditional exams to ensure proficiency in essential competencies required for clinical practice.

  • Biopsychosocial education: Effective teaching and learning to provide a more holistic, ethical and comprehensive approach to patient case.

  • Wellness and resilience: Self-care, stress management, and mental health support approaches such as mindfulness and peer support networks. Curriculum reform, including flexible scheduling, reducing workload and modifying assessment practices to create a healthier learning environment and promote a culture of empathy and compassion in healthcare.

  • Data-driven and evidence-based medicine: Education in critical appraisal of biomedical literature, interpret research findings, and apply evidence-based practices in clinical decision-making.

    • Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

    So, I hope it is interesting to consider why we should know the hot topics for research and identify topics that are warming up so that we can strive towards thoroughness in medical education research. We look forward to sharing more hot topics through the BMERG blog.

    “Medical education is not just a program for building knowledge and skills in its recipients… it is also an experience which creates attitudes and expectations.” Abraham Flexner

    You can also check out Grace’s recent hot topic blog on Reflexive Thematic Analysis here

    Do you have a hot topic that you would like to write about for BMERG? Get in touch at brms-bmerg@bristol.ac.uk

Training: Bristol Medical School Short Course Programme 2023/24

Posted on by sarah.allsop

If you are a health sciences education researcher and are looking for training in research methods, check out the new programme from Bristol Medical School Short Courses.

Photo by Amelia Bartlett on Unsplash

Short courses are designed for researchers and healthcare practitioners and cover a range of topics on research methodology, design and analysis in health sciences. From statistics to qualitative methods, data visualisations, or writing up journal papers, there is something to support your research journey.

Bookings will be available from midday on 17th October.

Find out more on the short course website or explore the chart of courses available month-by-month below.

Short-Course-Programme-Chart-2023-2024Download

Conference Report: AOME – INHWE Joint Conference 2023, Cardiff 27-29 June 2023

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

“Learning together for clinical excellence”

It’s conference season and Sarah Allsop reflects on the AOME-INHWE conference held recently at Cardiff University.

Centre for Student Life, University of Cardiff

The joint conference between the Academy of Medical Educators (AOME) and the International Network for Health Workforce Education (INHWE) was held last week in the beautiful city of Cardiff and hosted by Cardiff University in the Centre for Student Life.

Over the three days, the presentations and workshops spanned a huge diversity of topics, but centred around the values and culture that we need to support excellent patient care through working together. One of the frustrations of conferences is that due to the parallel nature of the scheduling, you can’t always get to everything that you really want to see. The flip side of this, is that you might end up attending something you didn’t expect, which turns out to be really interesting and useful. I love the fact that you always make new connections and learn something new at conferences.

A few of the talks really stood out for me during the conference.

  • The Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services, Eluned Morgan MS, highlighted the importance of including educators in workforce planning to tackle the challenges of healthcare in Wales and across the UK.
  • Professor Josie Fraser, Deputy Vice Chancellor for the Open University, talked about the value and outcomes of using enquiry-based learning, in particular team-based learning in interprofessional learning groups. She highlighted the value in students debating together and understanding each other’s viewpoints better, and learning how to work together, building confidence and respect.
  • Professor Jacky Hayden CBE spoke about the importance of planning for the future, and critical to this is investing time to develop the medical education leaders of tomorrow. Importantly she talked about creating the space to develop these skills. Healthcare education leaders need to drive the quality of standards not only in higher education institutions, but also in the healthcare providers within the NHS. Education leaders have the power to influence culture, and the importance of compassion and trust are hugely important in developing others.

Bristol Medical School was also represented at the conference with both staff and students presenting work including:

  • ‘The lost decades’ a workshop led by BMERGs Dr Sarah Allsop with Professor Colin Macdougall from Warwick Medical School on how to problem solve some of the challenges ahead for medical educators
  • ‘Enhancing Anatomy Teaching Through Peer-Run, Flipped Classroom Sessions’ poster presented by Bristol medical students Mr Adam Mistry and Ms Shraddha Sriraman
  • ‘Inspiring the next generation to innovate in healthcare through a cross-faculty student innovation programme’ presented by Bristol medical student Miss Somto Okoli with students from Cardiff Medical School

Colleagues from our Bristol NHS Academies also presented including:

  • ‘Developing a tailored teaching program to support international medical graduates’ presented by Dr Laura Kyle, Dr Eleanor Pilsworth, Dr Bethan Arnold, Dr Malvika Subramaniam, and Dr Amy Whitworth from Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton
  • ‘Celebrating Trainee Success Drives Learning and Boosts Morale’ – Unanimously positive experience of a departmental teaching session driven by trainees’ case presentations of personal excellence presented by Miss Robyn Brown and Mr Anthony Gould from Great Western Hospital, Swindon

The whole conference was extraordinarily uplifting and a reminder of the huge enthusiasm and energy of the medical education community.

The full programme and abstract book can be viewed at https://www.medicaleducators.org/Learning-Together-for-Clinical-Excellence-2023

I would recommend any aspiring and current educators to consider attending future AOME and INHWE events and looking at the professional standards and support available from these associations.

Find out more about AOME: https://www.medicaleducators.org/Why-join-AoME

Find out more about INHWE: https://inhwe.org/

Acknowledgement: Sarah Allsop (blog author) would like to acknowledge the funding grant awarded by the Bristol Medical School to support her presentation at this conference in June 2023.

Publishing in Medical Education: Matching

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

In this blog, Sarah Allsop discusses the challenge of navigating how to choose and ‘match’ with your perfect publisher.

Photo by Georg Eiermann on Unsplash

Thinking about how, when and where you are going to publish and disseminate the findings of your medical education research is an important step in your research journey. In fact, it should probably be a really early step, as consideration for how you are going to share your work can influence the type of journal or publisher that you look for.

Ask yourself right from the start,

  • What is the reach of this work, what audience am I trying to communicate with?
  • What is the value of this work, who will benefit from seeing the results and how can I make this most accessible to my target group?
  • What do I want the impact of my work to be, who am I hoping to influence?

By considering these types of questions, it can help you to consider where you want to publish your work. You can then try to match this with the aims and objectives of selected medical education journals.

Always cross-check the aims and author guidelines of your chosen journal to check the scope matches with your manuscripts content, design and emphasis

TOP TIP

The challenge will be that if you don’t match your work to the journal or publisher, this can be a swift road to rejection – and this is hard. It doesn’t however mean that your work is not good enough to be published. In fact a rejection at a very early stage is far more likely simply to mean that you have not matched the scope of the journal. Don’t be disheartened, as there is a place for all good work to be shared.

One of the things that can really help you when thinking about how to navigate the publishing journey is to make a list of your top five journals or publications where you would most like to publish your work. To start with do this really spontaneously and go for what you really want.

Then take a step back and carefully consider and critique these choices. Does my work match the scope of this journal? Is my work likely to be written up or is written up in the style that suits the readership of the journal? Is my work realistic for this publisher? You need to be honest – for example, if a particular journal states in its aims that it only publishes international collaborative work, if you have undertaken a small single-centre study, this is unlikely to get published in that particular journal.

Revisit your list and see if there are any journals that don’t match the work. Make sure you still have 3-5 options, so that you know from the start when your next submission will be if you get rejected from the first, it not only saves time but reminds you that the process might include rejection and that’s ok.

Next take a look at the manuscript types on offer from each of the journals on your list. These can usually be found in the ‘Author Guidelines’ section. It will describe in details all of the manuscript types, which are commissioned, which are accessible to all authors. It will also highlight formatting and referencing requirements, word lengths and open access agreements. Check again that your work matches closely to one of the manuscript types listed. If it does great, if not do you need to rethink your journal list.

Hopefully, by the end of this second step you have a list of journals that firstly, publish the type of manuscript you are writing to an audience you want to reach, and secondly you now know the word count, style and formatting you need to use to move forward.

Good luck with your writing and watch out for more blogs on publishing coming soon.

You may find the list of journals written by Olle ten Cate shared in our blog on journal lists useful: BMERG Blog: Publishing in Medical Education: List of Journals.

Hot Topics: Researcher skills – 5 key learning points about Reflexive Thematic Analysis

Posted on by sarah.allsop

This blog is written for BMERG by one of our committee members Dr Grace Pearson. Grace is Bristol Medical School graduate and a current Clinical Research Fellow in Population Health Sciences. Her research interests are in undergraduate medical education, specifically curriculum development and evaluation and geriatrics education.  

Grace shares her experience and tips after attending a workshop hosted by BMERG and the School of Policy Studies on ‘Reflexive Thematic Analysis’ from the expert Qualitative researcher, Professor Virginia Braun from the University of Auckland. 

Image of a galaxy Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash
Image of buckets Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

At medical school, future doctors are taught to detect patterns in history and examination to reach a diagnosis. Moving into medical research, this scientific pattern-recognition continues in quantitative data analysis and interpretation. As a result, approaching mixed methods studies or pure qualitative research can be daunting for those of us in medical and other scientific fields – it certainly was for me.  

There are several core aspects of qualitative data analysis that I’ve never truly got to grips with, despite attending multiple training courses… Therefore, getting the chance to learn directly from a world-leading expert was an opportunity not to be missed.  

I went into this workshop wanting to learn how to analyse or ‘code’ my data and develop my themes. I came away with a much wider appreciation of the importance of exploring context, embracing subjectivity, finding latent meaning, and conceptualising what Prof Braun called ‘galaxy’ themes rather than ‘buckets’. Let me explain a bit more.  

When we first look at qualitative data during analysis, certain things can jump out at us as topics. We may think these may start to look like our themes, but if we are not careful, they can end up looking like our original questions and, because everything we connect to a particular topic ends up together ‘in a bucket’ so to speak, may have lots of conflicting ideas within them.  

Conversely, true themes are more like a galaxy with a clear core, a ‘central organizing concept’ holding together all the ideas which although may be different, just like stars and planets are in a galaxy, they remain inherently linked. 

Here are my 5 key learning points from Professor Braun’s fantastic reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) workshop, which I hope might help others to approach their own qualitative data analysis in a reassuringly robust way:  

  • Scientifically Descriptive vs Artfully Interpretive analysis: Descriptive describes and summarises the data in an ‘experiential’ or ‘realist’ manner. Interpretive tells a story, locating the data within a wider context and presents an argument in a ‘critical’ or ‘constructionist’ way. Approaches to thematic analysis (TA), range from ‘scientifically descriptive’ deductive methods such as coding reliability, to ‘artfully interpretive’ inductive methods such as reflexive TA. 
  • Small q vs Big Q: Descriptive analysis suits ‘Small q’ research questions that seek to explore or describe peoples’ experiences, understandings, or perceptions – their ‘individual reality’. Interpretive analysis suits ‘Big Q’ research questions that seek to explore the ‘wider context’, for instance influencing factors, representations, and constructions.  
  • Context and Subjectivity: Analysis occurs in the intersecting space between the researcher(s), the data, and the research question. Subjectivity is present in all 3, as all are influenced by sociocultural, disciplinary, and scholarly context – as a result, analysis is situated in context, which must be clearly communicated.  
  • Coding: codes are ‘units of analytic interest’, the smallest unit of analysis capturing a single analytic idea or facet. These can be semantic (explicit) or latent (implicit) – descriptive analysis generally uses more semantic codes, whilst interpretive analysis uses both. Codes are not ontologically ‘real’, they exist only for the researcher(s) to foster engagement with the data – they need to capture the meaning of the data along with the researchers’ interpretation, orientated towards answering the research question.   
  • Themes: a theme is a construction that captures shared or repeated meaning in the data around a ‘central organising concept’. Themes are conceptual, therefore semantic-level data may seem disparate, but it is unified by latent meaning representing diverse manifestations of the core concept (like a galaxy).  Themes sit in the analytic narrative – they must tell a story of how the data is meaningful and answers the research question.   

Some examples of recommended resources for getting started using reflexive thematic analysis 

  • https://www.thematicanalysis.net/  
  • Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. SAGE. 
  • Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. SAGE. 
  • Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2021). Can I use TA? Should I use TA? Should I not use TA? Comparing reflexive thematic analysis and other pattern-based qualitative analytic approaches. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 21(1), 37-47. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12360 
  • Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238 

More about Professor Braun https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/v-braun

Virginia “Ginny” Braun is a New Zealand psychology academic specialising critical psychology of health and gender. She is internationally recognised for expertise in qualitative methodologies, and particularly the now widely utilised method of (reflexive) thematic analysis – developed in collaboration with Victoria Clarke (UWE).

Building Community: Networking Opportunities through joining a MedEd association

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

Joining one of the many Medical Education Associations can be a great way of meeting like minded people in the discipline and building collaborations. In this blog Sarah Allsop highlights a few of the available networks you can join.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Networking and national work can be a fantastic opportunity of medical educators to learn, develop and share their ideas with increased reach and impact. One of the ways of doing this is by joining one of the Medical Education Associations. For the UK, three of the main associations working in Medical Education are listed below, but there are many associations around the world:

  • The Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME)
  • The Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE)
  • The Academy of Medical Educators (AoME)

To start with you may simply want to join an association, to get linked in with their publications, discounts to their events or to undertaking training or accreditation. Each association offers a slightly different emphasis so it is worth having a look at their websites to consider which might be the best fit for you and your work, and of course you can join as many associations as you want. There are often discounted memberships for students and those in low-income situations aiming to make joining more inclusive.

Once you are a member, there are also calls to be involved in the committees which can further help to facilitate work on policies and strategic aspects of medical education. Watch out for these calls via social media and on association websites. We will also post about opportunities we spot right here on the BMERG blog too, so subscribe to get the latest news direct to your inbox, and follow us on twitter @BristolUniBMERG.

Which are your favourite #MedEd Associations to be part of? Add your thoughts in the comments section below!

Launching Bristol Medical School Educator and Researcher Profiles

Posted on by sarah.allsop

As part of our objective to ‘Innovate and Inspire’, this page is dedicated to showcasing not only the work of these individuals, but also a bit about their journey and their top tips for working in the discipline.

We will be adding a new profile every month to our educator and researcher profiles page, and our first profile spotlight is….

Annie Noble-Denny

Annie is the Director of BMERG, which she conceptualised as part of her vision to build the infrastructure needed to enhance the educational research portfolio at Bristol Medical School. She is the currently the School Education Director for Bristol Medical School and the Programme Director for the Teaching and Learning for Healthcare Professional Programmes (bristol.ac.uk/tlhp). 

Read Annie’s profile here

 

If you want to nominate someone from Bristol Medical School to feature on these pages contact us at brms-bmerg@bristol.ac.uk.