Evaluating reflective writing to guide curricular improvements in health informatics education

ABSTRACT

The use of reflective essays to guide curricular improvements is explored in this qualitative study of two cohorts of students enrolled in a graduate health informatics course. The research questions, methods, and analysis were co-designed with the course instructor and a student who had completed the course and was a teaching assistant in the subsequent year. We thematically analyzed 95 anonymized student reflective essays with a taxonomy of learning and codes developed using the assignment rubric and similar themes derived from published literature. Major themes that emerged were (1) foundational knowledge acquisition and understanding, (2) integration and critical reflection, (3) self-discovery and imagining possibilities beyond the course, and (4) sharing and the human dimension. The results reinforce strengths of the course and informs areas for curricular improvement that incorporate reflection as part of a summative assessment. The discussion highlights challenges students had in writing reflective essays, which will be used to refine the activity and the instructions for the assignment. Our findings will assist students in developing their reflective practice to carry forward in their experiential internship in the program and their careers.

KEYWORDS:

• Course design
• quality improvement
• reflective writing
• graduate
• experience

Disclosure statement

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

Data reference statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their full data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Ethics statement

This work has received ethics exemption as a quality improvement project from the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board (TCPS2 [2018] Article 2.5).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a student partner award from the MacPherson Institute for Students as Partners Program.

Notes on contributors

Cynthia Lokker

Cynthia Lokker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (HEI) in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from University of Windsor and an MSc in eHealth from McMaster University. She serves as the Health Sciences Faculty Lead for the Master of Science in eHealth program where she is an academic advisor to several students and teaches a core health science course on Fundamentals of eHealth and the Canadian Health Care System and a course in Research Methods in eHealth.

Rita Jezrawi

Rita Jezrawi is a recent graduate of the Master of Science eHealth program at McMaster University where she served as a graduate teaching assistant. She is an incoming Health Policy PhD student in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. Her research interests focus on the use of eHealth tools, health-related quality of life, and access to services for people with developmental disabilities.