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Measuring the Impact of Theory-Based Teaching (MITT)

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“When you’re adept at extracting the underlying principles or ‘rules’ that differentiate types of problems, you’re more successful at picking the right solutions in unfamiliar situations.”

Peter C. Brown, et al. Make It Stick : The Science of Successful Learning, Harvard University Press

 

“We are only just realizing that the art and science of education require a genius and a study of their own; and that this genius and this science are more than a bare knowledge of some branch of science or literature.”         

Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education

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Problem: Taylor and Hamdy (2013) posit that “clinicians are expected to adopt practices on the basis of the best available evidence,…[medical] educators should make use of the best available evidence to guide their educational decisions.” However, clinical faculty are neither formally educated nor trained in the discipline of Education. Therefore, clinicians often implement some of the established teaching and learning theories of behaviorism. cognitivism, constructivism, and critical theory, but do not necessarily recognize or negotiate them.

Research: Having a foundation in learning theories can prepare them for complex teaching situations and students with diverse learning needs (Badyal & Singh, 2017; Byerly et al., 2017; Fuller & Woods, 2021; Hochbaum et al., 1992; Khalil & Elkhider, 2016; Tamim & Grant, 2017). Indeed, exposing clinical educators (CEs) to a broader view of learning theories and their associated instructional approaches strengthens their ability to reach more learners and more effectively reach learning outcomes (Foster & Laurent, 2013; McLeod et al., 2008; Roos et al., 2014).

Hypothesis: In the fall of 2021, the Office of Curriculum & Scholarship at The Ohio State University College of Medicine began the process of designing an instrument to test our hypothesis: If medical educators know the theoretical underpinnings of their instructional strategies, then they can adopt other theories in order to balance their approaches. As a result of changing their instructional strategies, students’ learning outcomes and satisfaction will increase. The ETSA is the first tool to enable clinical educators to obtain results regarding four established teaching and learning theories: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and critical theory. The survey results can help faculty bridge the known gaps in teaching and learning, resulting in increased learning and satisfaction outcomes as well as increase their own teaching effectiveness. This project will offer CEs a toolbox of alternative theories to improve curriculum design and student outcomes.

Purpose and Intervention Framework: The first iteration of the survey is targeted to CEs. This purpose of this study is to provide clinical educators with the data to increase their instructional effectiveness. The MITT Intervention Framework provides structure for this CE professional development. Each respondent can receive results immediately after submitting the survey. The results provide a numerical tally of the extent to which each respondent’s self-assessed instructional approaches, beliefs, and practices align with four established educational theories: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and critical theory.  CEs can use the data to create a professional development plan that helps them to both understand educational theories and to negotiate them in their instructional practices for increased effectiveness and increased student learning outcomes.

 

Preliminary Data

preliminary data 

 

 

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Meet the Project Team