Connected, attracted, and concerned: A Q study on medical crossborder curriculum partnerships

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

Medical host teachers have a variety of perceptions regarding their teaching experience. Some medical host teachers express a fear that host graduates might be inadequately trained to work in the host context of a medical curriculum partnership. Host teachers feel proud and challenged by working with home medical curricula, especially if they perceive a degree of autonomy. Policy and procedures may turn the variety of viewpoints into benefits to raise the quality of education delivery within curriculum partnerships.

Figure 1. The Q-sort grid.

Table 1. P set overview: the 24 participants categorized into gender, partnership, academic background, and viewpoint loadings.

Participant	Gender	Partnership	Discipline	Viewpoint loading^a
1	M	A	Clinician	2
2	F	A	Clinician
3	F	A	Basic scientist
4	F	A	Clinician	2
5	M	A	Clinician	2
6	F	A	Basic scientist	2
7	F	B	Social scientist	1
8	M	B	Basic scientist	1
9	F	B	Clinician	1
10	F	B	Social scientist	1
11	M	B	Social scientist	1
12	M	B	Clinician
13	M	C	Clinician
14	M	C	Clinician	2
15	M	C	Basic scientist	3
16	M	C	Social scientist
17	M	C	Social scientist	1
18	M	C	Social scientist
19	F	D	Basic scientist
20	M	D	Basic scientist	2
21	F	D	Basic scientist
22	M	D	Clinician	2
23	M	D	Clinician	3
24	F	D	Clinician	1

^a This column indicates which participant, if applicable, loads significantly on which factor.

Table 2. Distribution of the three emerging viewpoints regarding teaching in a medical crossborder curriculum partnership.

Viewpoint
Characteristic	1: Connected	2: Attracted	3: Concerned
Number of defining participants^a	7	7	2
% of variance explained by the viewpoint	25	23	9

^a Of the 24 participants, eight were not uniquely associated with a single viewpoint.

Table 3. The Q set and associated Q-sort values, indicating for each factor the average level of agreement on each statement (on a scale from −5 to +5).

		Q-sort value for viewpoint
Statement		1:	2:	3:
1	Certain essential diseases in the local context are not included in the learning program of our students	–1^d	1^d	5^d
2	A good relationship between host and home staff is essential to the quality of the program delivery	5^d	1	1
3	Email is an ineffective tool for communicating with home teachers^b	–1	–2	–2
4	Dealing with our students’ learning styles is difficult^a	–1	–1	0
5	Host teachers deliver the program in the exact same way as home teachers do	–1	0^d	–1
6	English is not an impeding factor for my students	–1	2^d	–2
7	My students are able to attain the same learning objectives as home students do^b	3	4	2
8	I am afraid our students are not appropriately trained to work in the local healthcare setting	–2	–2	0^d
9	I can add important local aspects to my teaching, regarding local diseases and the local healthcare system, for example^a	1	3	4
10	I appreciate the international community of teachers at this institution^a	2	1	4
11	I do not like the learning method of the home institution^b	–3	–4	–2
12	I can teach without interference from my colleagues at the home institution^b	1	2	0
13	I feel part of the teaching community of the home institution	2^d	0^d	–5^d
14	I feel a strong commitment to this host institution^b	1	2	1
15	I find it difficult to work with educational materials that have been constructed by someone else	0^d	–3	–4
16	I feel that home teachers treat us as unimportant^b	–2	–3	–4
17	I have a good relationship with my counterpart in the home institution^a	2	1	1
18	I fully understand the philosophy behind the home program	3	3	–1^d
19	I sometimes feel a slave because I just follow orders from the home institution	–3	–5^d	–1^d
20	I miss creating educational content myself	0^c	–3^d	3^c
21	I think more lectures would improve the quality of the program	–2	0	1
22	I sometimes feel inferior when communicating with colleagues from the home institution^b	–4	–2	–3
23	It gives me a sense of pride to deliver the reputable program of the home institution	2	4	2
24	I would like to interact more with the home teachers^b	1	0	1
25	My suggestions for improvement of the course are discussed with home teachers	3	–1^d	2
26	Most of our students adapt quickly to the learning style required by the home curriculum^a	1	2	0
27	Our students are assessment-driven	0^c	3	2
28	Our curriculum partnership causes inflexibility because many aspects need to be coordinated with the home institution	0	–1	–4^d
29	Our students lack the ability to study independently^a	–2	0	–1
30	Our students are better than their home institution counterparts^b	–2	0	–2
31	Our students show responsibility for their own learning^b	0	0	1
32	The learning experience of our students is the same as that of home students	0	0	–3^d
33	Teaching in a medical crossborder curriculum partnership creates more red tape because of coordination between institutions	1^d	–1^d	3^d
34	Staff from the home institution do not understand the local context	0	–2^c	0
35	Teaching in a medical crossborder curriculum partnership is unattractive	–3	–4	0^d
36	Teaching in a medical crossborder curriculum partnership adds value to my career	2	5^c	3
37	Thanks to the curriculum partnership the quality of graduates is higher than would have been the case if we had developed all the educational materials ourselves	4^d	–1	–1
38	The assessment tools of the home program are not suitable for our students	–4^d	–1^d	2^d
39	The student-centered methodology does not work in this setting	–5^c	–2	–1
40	The educational program is relevant to the local healthcare setting	0^c	1^c	–2^c
41	Training in how to communicate with staff from the home institution is needed	–1	1	0
42	This program will benefit students in their future career	4^c	2^c	0^d

We considered a statement with a factor score of 5, 4, −4, or −5 as characteristic of that viewpoint, while we flagged statements with a score that differed statistically significantly from those of all other viewpoints as distinguishing statements.

^a Consensus statement for all viewpoints at p > 0.01.

^b Consensus statement for all viewpoints at p > 0.05.

^c Distinguishing statement at p < 0.01.

^d Distinguishing statement at p < 0.05.