Development and validation of a tool to measure belongingness as a proxy for participation in undergraduate clinical learning

ABSTRACT

Background

‘Participation’ in a ‘community of practice’ is often proposed as a mechanism for clinical learning; however, the use of both terms is variable – ranging from technical to vernacular. Belongingness is a related single concept and development of a tool that measures belongingness may therefore be useful in adding to our understanding of when participation and hence learning takes place in clinical settings.

Methods

After identifying relevant material from the literature, a draft belongingness assessment tool was developed, based on previously published work. This was piloted on 181 undergraduate medical students and the results subjected to factor analysis. The final version was then used to identify whether differences exist between two different clinical teaching environments.

Results

Our belongingness assessment tool had internal and external validity, with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.940, and detected statistically significant differences between primary and secondary care teaching environments.

Conclusions

The belongingness scale described in this paper is a valid tool for the study of undergraduate medical students. This has the potential to investigate how variation in student experiences of participation in communities of practice influences learning. This tool revealed significant differences in student belongingness between primary and secondary care learning environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Belongingness
• communities of practice
• participation
• medical student
• clinical learning

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Professor John Sandars and Dr Pirashanthie Vivekananda-Schmidt, Professor Tracy Levett-Jones and Dr Caroline Elton for their invaluable advice and permission to use their material and the students of the University of Exeter Medical School who participated in this study.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the MSc Clinical Education programme team, operating with delegated authority on behalf of the University of Exeter Medical School’s Research Ethics Committee.

Disclosure statement

Two of the authors (AH and RD) are involved in clinical teaching of undergraduate medical students in primary care at the University of Exeter.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have not received any funding or benefits from industry or elsewhere to conduct this study.