We are analyzing application essays submitted to our online program to better understand student motivation to apply to our program. The results from this study may be used to assess curricular alignment based on emerging themes. This could lead to alterations in curriculum, program communication, marketing, and recruitment efforts.
BACKGROUND
Teaching is an inevitable physician function1,2 along the medical education continuum, yet few physicians receive formal training in the theoretical foundations of teaching and learning.3,4 Educator development training is not standardized or routinely incorporated into undergraduate or graduate medical training. Thus, acquisition of these knowledge, skills, and attitudes of educational theory most often happens “on the job”4, through professional organizations (i.e. Advancing Pediatric Educator Excellence (APEX) Teaching Program5) or institutional programs (Clinical Teaching Program6). However, others have proposed that pursuing more formal training such as a master’s degree in medical or health sciences education may be the most specific method to obtain a strong foundation in educational theory and practice.7,8,9
In fact, the number of master’s degree programs focused on developing educational skills for health care professionals has greatly increased from 7 to 76 in the past 16 years10 and this number continues to increase. A recent analysis of the curricular content of 121 master’s degree programs in health professions education, identified five consistent knowledge and skills domains across these programs: 1) teaching and learning, 2) curriculum development, 3) evaluation and assessment, 4) research methodology, and 5) leadership and management.11 While each program may choose a different area of focus from within these domains the majority of these programs are delivered in traditional face-to-face or partially online learning environments with very few programs being offered entirely online.11 Despite this continued growth, there is little known related to physicians’ motivation to pursue a master’s degree in education.
Physician motivation, in general, has been broadly studied across many other facets of their roles and responsibilities.12,13 There are fewer studies exploring the motivation related to teaching,14,15,16 but nothing known to the authors specifically exists on physician motivation to pursue a master’s degree in order to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes in educational theory. In this project, we will explore the motivation of physicians who purposefully pursue an online Master of Education (MEd) utilizing application essays of graduates who completed our MEd program and demographic data submitted at time of application.
METHODS
Aims
This study has two aims. First, to explore the motivation of physicians who pursue our online master of education degree in medical education. Second, to describe the differences in motivation among a number of demographic variables including academic title and educational role at time of application, specialty, type of institution, earned degrees, gender, age, and year starting and completing the MEd program as associated with the themes identified in our first aim.
Study Design
A sequential mixed-methods study design will be followed.
Setting
Our online MEd program for physicians was developed in 1999 by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati.17 The 30-semester hour program focuses on adult learning, curriculum, and educational research with leadership embedded within multiple courses.18 Admission essays of all physician graduates of our online MEd program (n = 120) from December 2001 through December 2017 will be included in the study.
Data Sources and Collection
Data will be extracted from an existing database of materials submitted when applicants apply to our program. These data include both application essays and demographic variables including academic title and educational role at time of application, specialty, type of institution, earned degrees, gender, age, and the year they started and completed the MEd program needed to explore our study aims. Prior to analysis, essays will be de-identified and labeled with a participant ID number by a research assistant. Demographic data of interest will also be labeled with the same participant ID as the essays by the same research assistant.
Data Analysis
To address our first aim, admission essays will be analyzed using thematic analysis of the essay text. Three members of the research team will be trained and subsequently code and analyze the data. As part of the training, these research team members will independently code the same sample of fifteen essays, randomly selected using participant ID numbers via an Excel number generator. First, this team will review the essay text line by line and create open codes based of the content in the essay text that may address our first aim. Next, similar codes will then be clustered on a coding sheet with the associated essay text and participant ID number in order to help identify primary categories which later will be combined into main categories that will eventually become themes.19 Once these initial 15 essays are independently analyzed, the researchers will discuss their initial codes and categories and resolve any differences that may present.
After consensus has been reached on the codes and categories, the research team will return to the entire data set and each analyze up to an additional 35-40 essays until they reach saturation of codes and categories employing the same methodology. Once the members have reached saturation, meaning that no new information is being added,19 the same team will meet again to review, update codes and categories and resolve any discrepancies. From this list of categories, the team will discuss and agree upon emerging themes for the entire data set. This reiterative process will help address discrepancies and establish trustworthiness and validity in qualitative analysis.
To address the second study aim, we will explore the association between each of the agreed upon themes generated from qualitative analysis by the previously determined a priori demographic variables of academic title and educational role at time of application, specialty, type of institution, earned degrees, gender, age, and year starting and completing the MEd program. We will examine the frequency distribution of the demographic variables and use Chi-square testing to evaluate the association between the themes and the demographic variables. The entire research team will meet to review the results and decide if additional quantitative analysis is needed. The demographic variables and themes may be transformed into numerical values for secondary quantitative analysis and statistical testing which is to be determined as it is part of the inductive process.
FUTURE USE
We are analyzing application essays submitted to our online program to better understand student motivation to apply to our program. The results from this study may be used to assess curricular alignment based on emerging themes. This could lead to alterations in curriculum, program communication, marketing, and recruitment efforts.