Everybody is able to reflect, or aren't they? Evaluating the development of medical professionalism via a longitudinal portfolio mentoring program from a student perspective

Strengthening the Process of Mentoring Through Portfolios

In the field of medical education, mentoring is a form of dynamic relationship that is crucial to facilitating the learning process among medical students and helping them in their professional development. The utility of a portfolio in mentoring is not a mere collection of work samples, rather it is a dynamic tool to ensure the professional and personal growth of medical students, with the help of reflective insights. Portfolio can be used to set goals and track the progress of students over a period of time. Even though mentoring through portfolio has been linked with multiple benefits, there are multiple challenges that must be taken into consideration to enhance the overall utility. In conclusion, mentoring carried out through a portfolio has immense potential to facilitate learning and encourage professional growth. However, considering the presence of multiple challenges, there is an immense need to establish a structured framework for portfolio mentoring and support the same with training and technical support.

Perceptions of portfolio assessment in family medicine graduates: a qualitative interview study

BACKGROUND

The use of the portfolio methodology in medical education can serve as a tool for learning, assessment, and reflection on practice. This study concentrates on perceptions of the portfolio assessment methodology among participants in the Saudi Diploma of Family Medicine program.

METHODS

In this qualitative interview study, data were collected and analysed using a grounded theory approach.

RESULTS

Nine codes emerged: (1) Importance of understanding the definition, objectives, and process of portfolio assessment, (2) Impact of different understandings on the part of various trainers, (3) Role of the type of assessment, (4) Workload and stress of portfolio assessment, (5) Effectiveness of the portfolio contents, (6) Role of the mentor's feedback, (7) Role in the learning process, (8) Role in practice, (9) Suggestions for portfolio improvement. Open codes were then regrouped into three axial codes: context, strategy, and outcome of portfolio assessment.

CONCLUSION

This study explored a general explanation of portfolio assessment shaped by the postgraduate students. It identifies the importance of portfolio understanding in student acceptability of the portfolio assessment methodology. Thus, proper implementation is vital for the success of assessing the student by the portfolio methodology. The students perceived reflection as the most valuable part of the process, which facilitated their learning, confidence, and self-assessment. Mentor feedback is a good strategy for coping with portfolio challenges. Our findings provide some evidence of positive outcomes of portfolio assessment in practice and professional development.

Modelling the Effect of Age, Semester of Study and Its Interaction on Self-Reflection of Competencies in Medical Students

Objectives: Accurate self-assessment and -reflection of competencies are crucial skills for all health professions. The National Competence-Based Learning Objectives Catalogue (NKLM) guiding medical faculties in Germany points out reflection as a non-technical skill and competency-based medical education (CBME) as important approaches. In this context, the role and structure of curricula and skills labs evolved. Especially in peer-assisted trainings, reflection of competencies is important to improve self-regulated learning. Traditionally, we assume self-reflection skills to evolve automatically with learners’ experience. This approach aims to find empirical evidence for this assumption and implements self-reflection of competencies in clinical skills education. Here, we quantify the influence of age and semester of study and its interaction on the concordant self-reflection of students’ own competencies. Methods: Investigation was based on a retrospective analysis of evaluation data from peer-assisted “first aid” and “physical examination” courses in the skills labs of the medical faculty at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Participants were asked for self-assessed competencies before (pre) and after (post) the course. Additionally, they were asked to retrospectively re-rate their “before” competencies after completing the course (post-pre). Differences between pre and post-pre competencies were assessed as the concordant self-reflection in a moderated regression analysis. Group means and standard deviation were depicted using univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc Tukey HSD testing in IBM SPSS Statistics V.28. Moderated regression and simple slope analyses were conducted to calculate interaction effects of age and semester of study on the concordant self-reflection. Results: As expected, participants (n = 168) showed significant progress in subjective self-assessment (pre vs. post) in all 18 assessed domains in the course (all p < 0.001). Additionally, participants self-assessed their previous competencies after the course (post-pre) differently than before the course (pre) in 11 out of 18 domains. Hereby, the interaction of age and semester of study explained a significant part of variance in the first aid course (∆R2 = 0.008, ∆F (1;1020) = 8.53, p < 0.005) and in the physical examination course (ΔR2 = 0.03, ΔF (1;10,280) = 10.72, p < 0.001). Conclusions: We quantified that interaction of age and semester has a significant influence on concordant self-reflection skills using a moderated regression analysis. Assumed as an indicator, we conclude that advanced and older students show less differences in pre- vs. post-pre-ratings. This has implications for curriculum development, postulating that an exposure to self-reflection as a metacognitive process should be introduced early in order to train competencies in health professionals. Prospective studies with competency-based assessments are necessary to validate findings.