International Archives of Medicine Blog

Assessing papers on educational interventions

We have just published an article on a health educational intervention (Utilizing video on myocardial infarction).

Most doctors are increasingly involved in education, and they should benefit from being exposed to research in medical education. Nevertheless general medical journals have published little educational research and the methods used in educational research are often different from those most familiar to readers of general medical journals.

On the other hand US government requirements state that federally funded grants and school programs must prove that they are based on scientifically proved improvements in teaching and learning. All new grants must show they are based on scientifically sound research to be funded, and budgets to schools must likewise show that they are based on scientifically sound research. However, the movement in education over the past several years has been toward qualitative rather than quantitative measures. The new legislation comes at a time when researchers are ill trained to measure results or even to frame questions in an empirical way, and when school administrators and teachers are no longer remember or were never trained to prove statistically that their programs are effective.

BMJ published a useful guidelines for evaluating papers on educational interventions View

Do you have any idea to improve the assessment of papers or projects on educational interventions?

Posted by Manuel Menéndez González at 21:50    Comments (0)