Introduction to Medical Education Scholarship

Introduction to Medical Education Scholarship

Peter GM de Jong, PhD

Editor-in-Chief, Medical Science Educator, IAMSE

Senior Researcher, Leiden University Medical Center

The Netherlands 

For medical educators, it is crucial to develop themselves in the field of educational scholarship to be able to explore the impact of their educational practice and to improve their teaching based on theory and evidence. In general, scholarship is defined as the creative, systematic, and rational inquiry into a topic and the honest reporting of results and conclusions drawn from that inquiry. It always builds on existing knowledge in the field and employs critical analysis and judgment to enhance understanding. Scholarship results in a product that is shared with others and is subject to the criticism of peers qualified to judge the product. The most well know product is the journal article, but many other scholarly products exist.

In this session, Dr. de Jong will address different opportunities available in the field of educational scholarship. He will introduce the audience to the concepts of evaluation and research, available research paradigms and study design approaches, identifying research questions, and the fundamental differences between educational research and biomedical research, in which many medical educators are originally trained. Finally he will present a brief overview of opportunities to disseminate and publish scholarly outcome.