Core-competence skills in e-mentoring for medical educators: A conceptual exploration

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

E-mentoring was seen as a valuable approach to enhance standards of patient care by finding innovative ways of supporting medical staff in their efforts of professional development. The ability to facilitate the analysis, construction and confirmation of meaning and understanding within a community of online mentees through sustained discourse largely supported by text-based communication seemed to enhance reflective practice. E-mentoring requires considerable online facilitation competences and field expertise to be accepted by learners and improve professional outcomes. Online synchronous and asynchronous communication competencies were important in order to develop an appropriate writing style as the online process of communication had a greater likelihood of miscommunication due to its mainly non-verbal and non-visual character. Participants’ experience of online time management was one of the most important factors in determining their rate of participation and completion of online-based tasks. The introduction of carefully structured and paced online assignments was important to reduce the amount of e-mentor and e-mentee time.

Figure 1. Flowchart of the methodological process.

Figure 2. Flowchart of 1st and 2nd phase selection process.

Figure 3. Flowchart of 3rd and final selection process.

Figure 4. Example of unsorted findings.

Figure 5. Example of findings sorted into themes for 2nd stagecoding.

Figure 6. E-mentoring competence model.

Table 5.  Overview of included studies

Type of item	No.	References
Books	8	Allan (2007), Foster-Turner (2006), Garrison and Anderson (2003), Littlejohn and Pegler (2007), McVay Lynch (2002), Salmon (2002b), Salmon (2004) and Sandars (2006)
Literature reviews	9	Barker (2002), Bierema and Merriam (2002), Brace-Govan (2003), Ensher et al. (2003), Godshalk (2007), O’Neill and Harris (2005), Ramani et al. (2006), Sambunjak et al. (2006) and Taherian and Shekarchian (2008)
Case studies	19	Bamford et al. (2008), Carbonaro et al. (2008), Connolly et al. (2007), De Smet et al. (2008), Easton (2003), Freeman (1997), Heidari et al. (2002), Hew and Knapczuk (2007), Hlapanis et al. (2006), Hunt et al. (2003), Kasprisina et al. (2008), Mash et al. (2005), Motteram (2006), Moule (2007), Murphy et al. (2005), Packham et al. (2006), Ryan et al. (2004), Salmon (2002a) and Wang (2008)
Discussion papers	6	Headlam-Wells and Gosland (2007), Gordon (2000), Griffiths and Miller (2005), Gunga and Ricketts (2008), McKimm et al. (2003) and Mueller (2004)
Expert consensus	2	Berk et al. (2005) and Department of Health (2004)

Table 1.  Overview of selected databases in the literature search

	Period
Database search phase 1
All EBM reviews: ACP, COCH, DARE	Earliest to 2008
AMED	1985–2008
Books at Ovid	Earliest to 2008
BNIA	1985–2008
CINAHL	1982–2008
EMBASE	1980–2008
HMIC	Earliest to 2008
IBSS	1951–2008
Inspec	1969–2008
MEDLINE (R) and MEDLINE (R) in-process and other non-indexed citation	1950–2008
PsycINFO	1806–2008
Your journals @ Ovid	Earliest to 2008
Database search phases 2 and 3
ASLIB	Earliest to 2008
ASSIA	1987–2008
BIDS	Earliest to 2008
BUBL	Earliest to 2008
COPAC	Entire record
ERIC	1962–2008
Google	2005–2008
HTA	Earliest to 2008
LTSN	Entire record
NRR	Entire record
SCOPUS	Entire record
SIGLE	Entire record
Web of science	Entire record
ZETOC	Earliest to 2008

Table 2.  Thesaurus of keywords on e-mentoring

Alternatives to mentoring	Alternatives to electronic	Areas of interest	Professionals involved	Related activities
Mentor*	Virtual	Medic*	Mente*	E-tivit*
Supervis*	Cyber	Educat*	Protege*	E-system*
Tutor*	Online	Professional	Precept*	E-mentor*
Moderat*	Blended	Primary care	Graduate*	E-tut*
Coach*	Tele*	General pract*	Student*	E-supervis*
Tuit*	Supported	Academic*	Doctor*	E-moderat*
	Technic*	Learning		E-coach*
	Technol*	Compet*
	Electronic*
	CAL
	CML
	CMC
	Computer-assisted
	Computer-mediated
	Computer-commun*

Table 3.  Individually searched journals

Journal	Period
Academic Medicine	Earliest to 2008
British Journal for General Practice	Entire record
British Journal of Educational Technology	Earliest to 2008
British Medical Journal	Entire record
Primary Care Research	Entire record
Medical Education	Entire record
Medical Teacher	Earliest to 2008
Postgraduate Medical Journal	Earliest to 2008
The European Journal of General Practice	Entire record
Reference	Hew and Knapczyk (2007)

Table 4.  Example of data extraction sheet findings

Subject/settings	• An exploratory study of question prompts and online mentoring (peer-mentoring experience) in a field-based practicum that focussed on teaching ill-structured problem solving of classroom discipline
	• Data on 26 (6 males, 20 females) in-service practicum teachers through online observations, online journal reports, questionnaires and reflection logs
	• A qualitative case study methodology was used
	• A 15-week graduate level practicum offered at a large Midwestern university in the United States
	• Each practicum teacher had one or two mentors and a faculty instructor who oversaw the teacher's work and interactions with mentors
Which e-mentoring competencies are addressed?	1. Valuing the practicum teachers’ contributions: praise, thanks and empathy
	2. Offering information about resources or sharing resources
	3. Offering solutions or providing advice on solutions
	4. Offering suggestions specific to the collection/reporting of data
	5. Providing information on specific principles, concepts or theories
	6. Giving advice about the problem context
	7. Asking practicum teachers to clarify or elaborate
	8. Sharing personal experiences or stories
What broader e-mentoring component governs above competencies?	Findings regarding mentoring functions reveal that mentors tended to use more instrumental-type psychosocial function or coaching through participation and providing structure, supporting individual students functions
Intended use and expected learning outcomes	Offering evidence on asynchronous online mentoring and question prompts
Study findings	• In-service practicum teachers perceived e-mentoring as being very beneficial in supporting their learning
	• About 24 practicum teachers (95%) were successful in developing effective interventions for their students
	• About 23 practicum teachers (92%) reported that the process outlined in the question prompts served as a very useful guide for addressing the longstanding problems of their student. In addition, 25 (98%) agreed or strongly agreed that interaction with the online mentors encouraged them to be more thoughtful with their project tasks
	• Survey results from item three and four indicated 22 mentors (85%) agreed or strongly agreed that being a mentor furthered their learning of concepts and procedures for handling classroom behaviour problems and 21 mentors (80%) agreed or strongly agreed that mentoring aided them in learning how intervention methods could be used with their own students
Critique points	• Small numbers; study population: 77% females
	• Study did not attend to differences among the practicum teachers and mentors with regard to their knowledge level, teaching experience and culture of their work place
	• Another limitation is that they did not compare online mentoring to more conventional approaches for supervising field experiences. With the increasing use of online technology in teacher education, it would be beneficial to compare conventional and online models of supervision to determine which approach enhances key aspects of professional development
	• It would be useful to study whether adding one or two face-to-face meetings between practicum teachers and mentors or structuring onsite visits of mentors to the teachers’ classrooms would have been helpful
Other important points	• The study offers evidence that asynchronous online mentoring and question prompts can enhance the professional development of both practicum teachers and mentors by helping them learn about and apply intervention strategies in solving real-world teaching problems
	• That online mentoring can pose some challenges as well. Its effectiveness seems to depend on having mentors who provide consistent, task-oriented and timely feedback
Qualifies as	Primary study XBackground information

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