Development of a phenomenologically derived method to assess affective learning in student journals following impactive educational experiences

Abstract

Background: Assessment of affective learning (AL) is difficult but important, particularly for health professional students, where it is intimately linked to the development of professional values. This study originally aimed to determine whether an emotionally impactive, extended, multimethod, interprofessional simulation experience enhanced the AL of senior medical students, compared to conventional seminars and workshops alone. This necessitated the development of a method to assess for the presence and quality of AL.

Methods: We developed a “double hermeneutic” method, derived from Smith’s Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, to identify examples of AL, according to Krathwohl’s hierarchy (“receiving,” “responding,” “valuing,” “organization,” “characterization”), in the journals of students from each arm of a randomized educational trial. Three assessors rated the highest level of AL seen in each journal and then we compared ratings from the two study arms.

Results: A total of 135 journals were available for assessment (81 Intervention, 54 Control). The method proved to be effective in identifying and characterizing examples of uniprofessional and interprofessional AL. The median level identified in Intervention journals (“valuing”) was significantly higher than Control journals (“responding,” p < 0.0001).

Conclusions: The method described provides a means to assess affective learning among health professional students. An extended, immersive simulation experience appears to enhance affective learning.

Acknowledgements

The authors of this study wish to thank the participants and the many codevelopers of CLEIMS, who are listed in our prior publication.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest related to this publication.

Notes on contributors

Gary D. Rogers, MBBS, PhD, is Professor of Medical Education and Deputy Head (Learning & Teaching) of the School of Medicine at Griffith University, in addition to a role as Program Lead for Interprofessional and Simulation-Based Learning in the Griffith Health Institute for the Development of Education and Scholarship (Health IDEAS).

Amary Mey, BPharm(Hons), PhD, is a Research Fellow at the School of Pharmacy, Griffith University, Gold Cost, Australia.

Pit Cheng Chan, BPharm, MSc, GCertHigherEd, is Coordinator of Interprofessional and Simulation-Based Learning in Health IDEAS at Griffith University.

Glossary

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis(IPA): IPA is a qualitative analytical method that pairs a broadly phenomenological perspective with notions of interpretation, or ?meaning making?, derived from the philosophy of symbolic interactionism elaborated by George Herbert Mead and John Dewey, as well as Heidegger?s phenomenological writing, in the first half of the twentieth century (Smith 1996). Jonathan Smith originally developed IPA as a tool to identify the meanings derived from the experience of people with chronic or serious illness, in the field of health psychology. He proposed that the researcher apply a ?double hermeneutic? process to interview transcripts or written accounts (Smith and Osborne 2008, p. 53). In this approach, the analyst first studies the way in which the participant describes having made sense of the experience they have described (the first hermeneutic) and then goes a step deeper to look behind the words and make sense of that sense-making in psychological terms.

Smith JA. 1996. Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: using interpretative phenomenological analysis in health psychology. Psychol Health. 11:261?271.

Smith JA, Osborn M. 2008. Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In: Smith JA, editor. Qualitative psychology: a practical guide to methods. 2nd edn. London: Sage Publications.

Affective learning: The affective domain of learning relates to ?interest, attitudes, and values, and the development of appreciations? (Bloom 1956, p. 7), as opposed to the acqusition of skills (psychomotor learning) and the development of knowledge and understanding (cognitive learning). In health professional education it has been described as the process through which professional values are acquired (Rogers et al. 2017).

Bloom BS. 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives. Vol. 1: Cognitive domain. New York: McKay. The current paper (Rogers et al.)