Qualitative content analysis of the highly cited articles in medical education: Trends and characteristics associated with citation of published studies in medical education research

Abstract

Purpose

To explore and describe the highly cited articles’ themes of research in medical education and to provide an insight into and reflection on which the elites of medical education society invested their energies from 2009 to 2018.

Methods

An in-depth content analysis as a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication was used to quantitatively assess subject interests, methods, and other characteristics associated with citation of published studies in medical education research. Meaning units were compacted and coded with labels and categories in two phases.

Results

Among a variety of topics, methods, and strategies, 764 codes, 24 descriptive themes, and seven categories were extracted from the content analysis as the most prominent. Categories of medical education research were: modern technologies updating in medical education; learner performance improvement; sociological aspects of medical education; clinical reasoning; research methodology concerns of medical education; instructional design educational models; and professional aspects of medical education.

Conclusions

Commitment to continuous revision of educational emphasis and concerns on technological, sociological, and methodological concerns were the most repeated components of the highly cited articles that were ascertained through increased structure course designs and instructional strategies of the flipped classrooms to realize clinical reasoning and performance improvement.

Practice points

• It becomes increasingly urgent to understand how various educational processes and technology-enhanced innovations affect each other and do or could influence learning outcomes, clinical reasoning, and performance improvement.

• Modern technologies as techniques to administer the changing educational and social environment, can supply and support the infrastructure and basis for operating many of the challenges in preparing the medical education community for the future.

• Research in the medical education context in the future should be focused on the inter-relationships of prominent and marginalized educational themes and categories.

Keywords:

• Medical education research
• highly cited articles
• content analysis
• change
• theory

Acknowledgements

The research was conducted in the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

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

Additional information

Funding

No funding.

Notes on contributors

Parisa Malekahmadi

Parisa Malekahmadi is PhD candidate of medical education at the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Her scholarly interests include critical discourse analysis in medical sciences.

Ahmadreza Yazdannik

Ahmadreza Yazdan-Nik, PhD, is assistant professor of critical care nursing at the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. He takes an interest in the philosophy of science and discourse analysis in medical and nursing sciences.

Mohammad Amouzadeh

Mohammad Amouzadeh, PhD, is professor of linguistics at the University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran and professor of linguistics & Humboldt Senior Research Fellow at the Sun Yat-sen University, PR China. His research focuses on sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis within higher education.

Nikoo Yamani

Nikoo Yamani, MD, MSc, PhD, is professor of medical education and director of Medical Education Development Center (EDC) at the Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Her scholarly interests include professionalism and curriculum planning in medical education.

Trudie Roberts

Trudie Roberts, BSc (Hons) MBChB, PhD, FRCP, FHEA, is professor of medical education and the director of both the Leeds Institute of Medical Education and the Medical Education Unit in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, UK. at the University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on technology in medical education, assessment of competence, professionalism, transitions in training and education, and personalized adaptive learning.