Student views of interprofessional education facilitator competencies: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Research attention has been paid to providing evidence on undergraduate/pre-licensure health sciences students’ interprofessional education competency requirements, placements, and attainment. Although interprofessional facilitator training has been identified as critical to interprofessional learner outcomes, scant research has examined student perceptions of valued facilitator competencies. This short report investigates students’ views of important attributes for interprofessional facilitation using a cross-sectional observation-survey design. A survey was conducted in a pre-licensure sample of n = 343 students (response rate 68%) from four health professions (nursing, midwifery, physical therapy, and occupational therapy). After completing a semester-long interprofessional education course, students completed a survey vis-à-vis rating the importance of interprofessional facilitator competency with regard to 25 abilities, 12 teacher profiles, and 10 characteristics. Taken together, results indicate the need for a multifaceted view of interprofessional facilitator competencies. Our findings will inform training targeted to specific facilitator competencies, as needed for optimizing the delivery of interprofessional education.

KEYWORDS:

• Facilitator
• teacher
• competency
• interprofessional education
• student

Concluding comments

Facilitator competencies are a critical but understudied aspect of IPE. Although training contexts will differ across institutions, this short report provides insight into the design of interprofessional facilitator or train-the-trainer programs. Our findings will stimulate further research on identifying pertinent facilitator competencies for enabling optimal preparation toward the effective delivery of pre-licensure IPE.

Declaration of interest

We have no interests or conflicts to declare in the conduct of the study or in the write-up of the short report manuscript.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew J. Kerry

Matthew J. Kerry currently holds a Scientific Associate Appointment at the ZHAW’s Institute of Health Sciences, where he conducts research as a member of the Interprofessional Learning and Practice Team.

Brigitta Spiegel-Steinmann

Brigitta Spiegel-Steinmann is a Research Associate at the ZHAW´s School of Health Professions, where she teaches and is currently conducting her doctoral studies in interprofessional education and collaboration.

Markus Melloh

Markus Melloh is Professor and Foundation Chair of Public Health as well as Foundation Director of the Institute of Health Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). In addition, he holds appointments as Clinical Associate Professor at the UWA Medical School, The University of Western Australia and as Adjunct Professor at Curtin Medical School, Curtin University, Australia.

Andrea Tamas

Andrea Tamas received her PhD in Environmental & Health Psychology from the University of Zurich in 2009. Since, she served as Head of International Relations at the ZHAW´s School of Health Professions. Since 2019, she currently holds faculty appointment at the University of Zurich in Business Medicine.

Julia Dratva

Julia Dratva holds appointment as Head of the ZHAW’s Health Sciences Research Unit. She has over 80 publications and presentation on health-services research and digital health literacy.

Emanuel Feusi

Emanuel Feusi holds appointment as Deputy Director of ZHAW´s Institute of Health Sciences, where he also serves as Lead of the Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice Unit. He has published widely on the topics of interprofessional education and collaborative practice.

Marion Huber

Marion Huber serves as the Deputy Leader of the Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice Unit at the ZHAW´s Institute of Health Sciences. She has published widely on the topics of interprofessional education and collaborative practice.