Situations that prompt teachers in problem-based curricula to reflect on their beliefs, identity and mission.

Teachers have different perceptions of how to enhance student learning. Whereas some take a teacher-centred perspective, others lean more towards a student-centred approach. Many studies in higher education have invoked Korthagen's onion model (2014) to explain how teachers' perspectives can impact their teaching practices. Spanning six interrelated layers, this model contains both outer (environment, behaviour, competencies) and inner (beliefs, identity, and mission) aspects. Focusing essentially on teachers' outer aspects, previous studies have paid scant attention to how particular situations affect teachers' inner aspects and, consequently, how teachers perceive student-centred learning. In this descriptive qualitative study, we explored situations that encouraged or discouraged teachers to embrace student-centred beliefs, identities and missions. We held three focus-group discussions with 18 teachers from two Indonesian medical schools, performing a thematic analysis of the data thus obtained. We found that certain situations made teachers reflect on their inner aspects, which either favourably or adversely affected their acceptance of a student-centred learning approach. Teachers' outer aspects (i.e. their prior problem-based teaching and learning experiences, learning situations from their own training as well as clinical duties) strongly interacted with their inner aspects, thereby shaping their teaching perspectives. Understanding how specific situations can influence teachers' inner aspects might help institutions to design faculty development programmes that address teachers' specific educational needs.

Continuous enhancement of educational quality - fostering a quality culture: AMEE Guide No. 147.

Internal quality assurance (IQA) is one of the core support systems on which schools in the health professions rely to ensure the quality of their educational processes. Through IQA they demonstrate being in control of their educational quality to accrediting bodies and continuously improve and enhance their educational programmes. Although its need is acknowledged by all stakeholders, creating a system of quality assurance has often led to establishing a 'tick-box' exercise overly focusing on quality control while neglecting quality improvement and enhancement. This AMEE Guide uses the concept of quality culture to describe the various dimensions that need to be addressed to move beyond the tick-box exercise. Quality culture can be defined as an organisational culture which consists of a structural/managerial aspect and a cultural/psychological aspect. As such this AMEE Guide addresses tools and processes to further an educational quality culture while also addressing ways in which individual and collective awareness of and commitment to educational quality can be fostered. By using cases within health professions education of both formal and informal learning settings, examples will be provided of how the diverse dimensions of a quality culture can be addressed in practice.

The imperative for (and opportunities of) research on adaptive expertise in health professions education.

In this editorial, three Advances in Health Sciences Education editors argue for the importance and impact of adaptive expertise on the future of health professions education and work. They present a sample of the broad range of theory-informed research currently contributing to understanding and applying adaptive expertise in health professions education. They reflect on the unique opportunities that interdisciplinarity offers this endeavour. Finally they offer potential ways forward for continued efforts to advance collective understanding of education, expert development and health professions practice.

Design and evaluation of a team-based interprofessional practice placement: A design-based research approach.

INTRODUCTION: Team-based Interprofessional Practice Placements (TIPPs) are innovative training practices. Evidence to substantiate the design of TIPPs is limited. This study explores the design and evaluation of TIPPs to support undergraduate students in gaining a better understanding of the complexity of patient problems in primary care settings and of collaboration within interprofessional teams. METHOD: We implemented TIPPs at a University of Applied Sciences, Belgium based on three principles: (1) authentic tasks with real clients, (2) students collaborated in small interprofessional teams, and (3) students were supported by teachers. TIPPs were evaluated using focus groups (N = 5) that explored teachers' (N = 13) and students' (N = 22) experiences. Data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Three themes were constructed. First, TIPPs enhance students' understanding of the complexity of clients' problems and what matters to the client. Second, TIPPs support students to value the expertise of interprofessional team members. Finally, to enhance students' learning, TIPPs must strike an appropriate balance between teacher support and student autonomy. CONCLUSION: The three design principles used to underpin the TIPPs were viable. Although students reported to receive sufficient support, they also felt this support should have been gradually withdrawn to offer more opportunities for autonomous learning. Teachers reported difficulties in balancing their support.

Applying Landscapes of Practice Principles to the Design of Interprofessional Education.

ISSUE: Although interprofessional education (IPE) is acknowledged as a way to prepare health professions students for future interprofessional collaboration (IPC), there is a need to better ground IPE-design in learning theory. Landscapes of practice and its concepts of knowledgeability and identification are suggested as a framework that may help optimize IPE. This Observation paper provides an explanation of how these concepts might be used in IPE-design. EVIDENCE: We propose using three modes of identification, i.e., engagement, imagination, and alignment, described in this framework, for an IPE-design that fosters IPC skills, professional identity formation, and knowledgeability about a field and its actors. Identification and knowledgeability are through to enable successful collaboration across professional and practice boundaries. IMPLICATIONS: Focusing on identification implies that students develop a sense of relevance to one another in solving complex problems (engagement), they become aware of their own roles and responsibilities in relation to others (imagination), and they gain awareness of the context in which the different professions align and collaborate (alignment). Altogether, this enables students to become knowledgeable in the landscape, which prepares them for successful interprofessional collaboration in practice.

Creativity: A viable and valuable competency in medicine? A qualitative exploratory study.

PURPOSE: To explore and describe medical students, postgraduate medical trainees, and medical specialists' perceptions of creativity, the importance they attach to creativity in contemporary healthcare, and, by extension, how they feel creativity can be taught in medical education. METHODS: The authors conducted seven semi-structured focus groups with medical students (n = 10), postgraduate medical trainees (n = 11) and medical specialists (n = 13). RESULTS: Participants had a trifurcated perception of creativity, which they described as a form of art that involves thinking and action processes. Facing complex patients in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape, doctors needed such a multifaceted perspective to be able to adapt and react to new and often complex situations that require creativity. Furthermore, participants identified conditions that were perceived to stimulate and inhibit creativity in healthcare and suggested several techniques to learn creativity. CONCLUSION: Participants perceived creativity as a form of art that involves thinking and action processes. Creativity is important to tackle the challenges of current and future workplaces, because it stimulates the search for original solutions which are needed in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape. Participants proposed different methods and techniques to promote creativity learning. However, we need further research to design and implement creativity in medical curricula.

Design and evaluation of a learning assignment in the undergraduate medical curricula on the four dimensions of care: a mixed method study.

BACKGROUND: Chronic and palliative care are rapidly gaining importance within the physician's range of duties. In this context, it is important to address the four dimensions of care: physical, psychological, social, and spiritual. Medical students, however, feel inadequately equipped to discuss these dimensions with the patient. To bridge this gap, a new assignment was developed and implemented, in which students talked to a chronic or palliative patient about the four dimensions of care during an internship. This study, reports the evaluation of this assignment by students and teachers using a design-based approach. METHODS: Mixed methods were used, including a) student questionnaires, b) student focus groups, c) teacher interviews, and d) student's written reflections. Two researchers performed analyses of the qualitative data from the focus groups, interviews, and written reflections using qualitative research software (ALTLAS.TI). Descriptive statistics were computed for the quantitative data using SPSS 21.0. RESULTS: Students and teachers valued talking to an actual patient about the four dimensions of care. Reading and providing peer feedback on each other's reports was considered valuable, especially when it came to the diversity of illnesses, the way that patients cope and communication techniques. The students considered reflection useful, especially in the group and provided it was not too frequent. All the dimensions were addressed in the interviews, however the spiritual dimension was found to be the most difficult to discuss. The analysis of the written reflections revealed an overlap between the social and spiritual dimensions. Students pay a lot of attention to the relationship between the illness and the patient's daily life, but the reflections do often not show insight in the potential relationship between the four dimensions and decisions in patient care. CONCLUSIONS: During internships, medical students can practice talking about four dimensions of care with a chronically ill or palliative patient. Due to the format, it can be implemented across existing internships with relatively little extra time and effort. Reflection, peer feedback, and group discussion under the guidance of a teacher are important additions.

The impact of interprofessional task-based training on the prevention of surgical site infection in a low-income country.

BACKGROUND: Training is considered instrumental in reducing surgical site infection. We developed training based on authentic tasks, interprofessional learning, and reflective learning for implementation in a low-income country where such training opportunities are rare. This study evaluated the results of training in terms of participants' acceptance, participants' knowledge acquisition, and their self-perceived behavior change. METHODS: We included 145 participants in the voluntary training program, comprising 66 technologists (45.5%), 43 nurses (29.7%), and 36 doctors (24.8%) from Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan. We measured "satisfaction" using a questionnaire at the end of the training, "knowledge" through pre-and post-intervention assessments, and "self-perceived behavior change" using a questionnaire and interviews 8 weeks post-training. RESULTS: Pre- and post-test scores showed a significant increase in knowledge. Participants were favorable to the training and eager to participate. They positively applied in practice what they had learned about preventing surgical site infection. Our qualitative data analysis revealed two categories of themes, representing the upsides of the training as it stood, and existing factors or downsides that hindered the effective transfer of learning to practice. CONCLUSION: Participants were very enthusiastic about the training format. The knowledge test showed a gain in knowledge. Moreover, participants acknowledged that their behavior toward the prevention of surgical site infection in the operating rooms had changed. The use of authentic tasks from daily clinical practice, as well as the interprofessional approach and reflection, were considered to promote the transfer of learning. Although promising, our findings also pointed to obstacles limiting the application of evidence-based knowledge, such as a shortage of supplies and conventional practices.

Collaborative learning: Elements encouraging and hindering deep approach to learning and use of elaboration strategies.

AIM: The purpose of this research was to investigate students' approaches to learning and use of cognitive strategies in a collaborative learning environment with team-based learning. METHOD: In a mixed-methods study, 263 medical students from 6 different semesters answered the R-SPQ-2F Questionnaire and MSLQ's items that measure elaboration and rehearsal strategies. ANOVA was used to compare differences between semesters, and Pearson's correlation to investigate how approaches to learning, cognitive strategies, and academic achievement correlate. Focus groups elucidated which elements in the collaborative learning environment enhanced or hindered deep approach to learning or elaboration strategies and why. RESULTS: Students took a deep approach to learning and sometimes a surface approach. They used elaboration and rehearsal strategies. First semester's students had significantly higher deep approach than fifth and sixth semesters' students. Elaboration strategies significantly correlated with final grade. Commitment to the group, case discussions, feeling challenged by teachers, and patients' visits were perceived to enhance deep approach to learning and use of elaboration strategies, while overload in course activities hindered deep approach to learning. CONCLUSIONS: Particular elements of the learning environment triggered students to take deep approach to learning and use elaboration strategies, and this positively correlated to academic achievement.

Mind the gap: Teachers' conceptions of student-staff partnership and its potential to enhance educational quality.

Introduction: Student-staff partnerships as a concept to improve medical education have received a growing amount of attention. Such partnerships are collaborations in which students and teachers seek to improve education by each adding their unique contribution to decision-making and implementation processes. Although previous research has demonstrated that students are favourable to this concept, teachers remain hesitant. The present study investigated teachers' conceptions of student-staff partnerships and of the prerequisites that are necessary to render such partnerships successful and enhance educational quality.Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 course coordinators who lead course design teams and also teach in 4 bachelor health programmes, using Bovill and Bulley's levels of student participation as sensitising concepts during data analysis.Results: The results pointed to three different conceptions of student-staff partnerships existing among teachers: Teachers teach and students study; teachers teach and value students' feedback; and teachers and students co-create. The prerequisites for effective co-creation teachers identified were: Teachers must be open to involve students and create dialogues; students must be motivated and have good communication skills; the organisation must be supportive; and teachers should have the final say.Conclusion: We conclude that teachers' conceptions are consistent with Bovill and Bulley's levels of student participation. Under certain conditions, teachers are willing to co-create and reach the highest levels of student participation.

Promoting positive perceptions of and motivation for research among undergraduate medical students to stimulate future research involvement: a grounded theory study.

BACKGROUND: Research is of great value to make advancements within the medical field and, ultimately, offer the best possible patient care. Physician-scientists are key in contributing to the development of medicine, as they can bridge the gap between research and practice. However, medicine currently faces a physician-scientist shortage. A possible solution to cultivate physician-scientists is to engage medical students in research in early phases of medical school. Evidence-based strategies to stimulate positive perceptions of and motivation for research among students could help to enhance research engagement. Consequently, understanding of students' perceptions of and motivation for research is needed. Therefore, this study aimed to identify conditions under which students develop positive perceptions of and motivation for research by answering the following sub-questions: 1) how do first-year medical students perceive research? and 2) which factors contribute to motivation or demotivation for conducting research? METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study with individual interviews using a grounded theory approach, involving 13 purposively sampled first-year medical students at Leiden University Medical Center. RESULTS: Our results suggest that first-year students are already able to identify many aspects of research. Students elaborated on the relevance of research for professional practice and personal development. Furthermore, our results suggest a relationship between perceptions of and motivation for research. Some perceptions were identical to motivating or demotivating factors to conduct research, like the relevance of research for practice and performing statistics respectively. Other motivating factors were, among others, acknowledgment, autonomy, and inspiring role models. Demotivating factors were, among others, lack of autonomy and relevance, and inadequate collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Our results contribute to the idea that perceptions of research are related to motivation for research, which offers possibilities for interventions to promote motivation for research by making use of student perceptions of research. Consequently, practical implications to stimulate research engagement in early phases of medical school are provided. Moreover, the results contribute to existing motivational theories like Theory of Planned Behavior and Self-Determination Theory within this specific domain.

Assessors' interpretations of narrative data on communication skills in a summative OSCE.

OBJECTIVES: Increasingly, narrative assessment data are used to substantiate and enhance the robustness of assessor judgements. However, the interpretation of written assessment comments is inherently complex and relies on human (expert) judgements. The purpose of this study was to explore how expert assessors process and construe or bring meaning to narrative data when interpreting narrative assessment comments written by others in the setting of standardised performance assessment. METHODS: Narrative assessment comments on student communication skills and communication scores across six objective structured clinical examination stations were obtained for 24 final-year pharmacy students. Aggregated narrative data across all stations were sampled for nine students (three good, three average and three poor performers, based on communication scores). A total of 10 expert assessors reviewed the aggregated set of narrative comments for each student. Cognitive (information) processing was captured through think-aloud procedures and verbal protocol analysis. RESULTS: Expert assessors primarily made use of two strategies to interpret the narratives, namely comparing and contrasting, and forming mental images of student performance. Assessors appeared to use three different perspectives when interpreting narrative comments, including those of: (i) the student (placing him- or herself in the shoes of the student); (ii) the examiner (adopting the role of examiner and reinterpreting comments according to his or her own standards or beliefs), and (iii) the professional (acting as the profession's gatekeeper by considering the assessment to be a representation of real-life practice). CONCLUSIONS: The present findings add to current understandings of assessors' interpretations of narrative performance data by identifying the strategies and different perspectives used by expert assessors to frame and bring meaning to written comments. Assessors' perspectives affect assessors' interpretations of assessment comments and are likely to be influenced by their beliefs, interpretations of the assessment setting and personal performance theories. These results call for the use of multiple assessors to account for variations in assessor perspectives in the interpretation of narrative assessment data.

Simulation-based education for novices: complex learning tasks promote reflective practice.

CONTEXT: Simulated clinical immersion (SCI), in which clinical situations are simulated in a realistic environment, safely and gradually exposes novices to complex problems. Given their limited experience, undergraduate students can potentially be quite overwhelmed by SCI learning tasks, which may result in misleading learning outcomes. Although task complexity should be adapted to the learner's level of expertise, many factors, both intrinsic and extraneous to the learning task, can influence perceived task complexity and its impact on cognitive processes. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to understand the effects of task complexity on undergraduate pharmacy students' cognitive load, task performance and perception of learning in SCI. METHODS: A total of 167 second-year pharmacy students were randomly assigned to undertake one simple and one complex learning task in SCI consecutively. Participants' cognitive load was measured after each task and debriefing. Task performance and time on task were also assessed. As part of a sequential explanatory design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students showing maximal variations in intrinsic cognitive load to elucidate their perceptions of learning when dealing with complexity. RESULTS: Although the complex task generated significantly higher cognitive load and time on task than the simple task, performance was high for both tasks. Qualitative results revealed that a lack of clinical experience, an unfamiliar resource in the environment and the constraints inherent to SCI, such as time limitations, hindered the clinical reasoning process and led to poorer self-evaluation of performance. Simple tasks helped students gain more self-confidence, whereas complex tasks further encouraged reflective practice during debriefings. CONCLUSIONS: Although complex tasks in SCI were more cognitively demanding and took longer to execute, students indicated that they learned more from them than they did from simple tasks. Complex tasks constitute an additional challenge in terms of clinical reasoning and thus provide a more valuable learning experience from the student's perspective.

How theory and design-based research can mature PBL practice and research.

Many educational institutions in higher education switched to problem-based learning (PBL) in the last 5 decades. Despite its' successful implementation worldwide, many institutions still encounter problems in their daily teaching practices that limit deep learning in students. This raises the question: How else can we look at PBL practice and research? The main argument of this reflective paper is to better align PBL practice with the theories or principles of contextual, constructive, self-directed and collaborative learning. This paper explains what these principles or theories are. In addition, it discusses a new way to bridge theory and practice: design-based research (DBR), which combines redesigning theory-based teaching practices with investigating these practices in close collaboration with various stakeholders. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to address the problems encountered in PBL. We should be very careful in drawing conclusions about which PBL approach works best. No single solution works optimally under all conditions. At most, DBR can help us gain better insight into why PBL with certain characteristics, preferably based on theory, might work in a specific context with particular goals in mind.

A review to identify key perspectives in PBL meta-analyses and reviews: trends, gaps and future research directions.

In the past 50 years, the original McMaster PBL model has been implemented, experimented, revised, and modified, and is still evolving. Yet, the development of PBL is not a series of success stories, but rather a journey of experiments, failures and lessons learned. In this paper, we analyzed the meta-analyses and systematic reviews on PBL from 1992 to present as they provide a focused lens on the PBL research in the past 5 decades. We identified three major waves in the PBL research development, analyzed their impact on PBL research and practice, and offered suggestions of research gaps and future directions for the field. The first wave of PBL research (polarization: 1990-mid 2000) focused on answering the question "Does PBL work?" and the outcomes. The results were conflicting. The researchers took polarizing positions and debated over the merits of PBL throughout this wave. However, the contradictory results and the debates in fact pushed the researchers to look harder for new directions to solve the puzzle. These efforts resulted in the second wave (from outcomes to process: mid 2000-mid 2010) that focused on the question "How does PBL work?" The second wave of PBL research targeted at investigating the effects of implementation constituents, such as assessment formats or single versus curriculum wide implementations. The third wave (specialization: mid 2010 and onward) of PBL research focused on "How does PBL work in different specific contexts?" These research widened our perspectives by expanding our understanding of how PBL manifests itself in different contexts. Given the diversification of PBL and more hybrid PBL models, we suggest "Why does PBL with particular implementation characteristics for specific outcomes work or not work in the condition where it is implemented?" to be the question to answer in the next wave of PBL research.

Disentangling residents' engagement with communities of clinical practice in the workplace.

Maximising the potential of the workplace as a learning environment entails understanding the complexity of its members' interactions. Although some articles have explored how residents engage with supervisors, nurses and pharmacists individually, there is little research on how residents enter into and engage with the broader community of clinical practice (CoCP). To this end, we designed a constructivist grounded theory study that took place at Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 residents from different training levels and disciplines during the first weeks of their new rotations. During the interviews, we used the Pictor technique as a visual aid to collect data. Using iterative data collection and analysis, constant comparison methods and theoretical sampling, we constructed the final results. When entering a CoCP, residents experienced recurring and intertwined processes including: exploring how their goals and interest are aligned with those of the CoCP; identifying the relevant CoCP members in the workplace environment; and understanding how these members could assist their successful engagement with the community's practices. Residents entered a CoCP with the intention of either having a central or a peripheral trajectory in it. The final resident participation and role resulted from negotiations between the resident and the CoCP members. Optimising workplace learning includes being mindful as to how each member of the healthcare team influence residents' engagement on practice, and on understanding the nuances of residents' participatory trajectories while interacting with them. Understanding such nuances could be key to align CoCPs' learning affordances and residents' goals and intentions.

Palliative care education in the undergraduate medical curricula: students' views on the importance of, their confidence in, and knowledge of palliative care.

BACKGROUND: The need for palliative care is increasing. Since almost every junior doctor will come across palliative care patients, it is important to include palliative care in the undergraduate curriculum. The objective of this research is to gather undergraduate students' views on palliative care in terms of its importance, their confidence in and knowledge of the domain. METHODS: Final-year medical students at four Dutch medical faculties were surveyed. The questionnaire measured their views on the education they had received, their self-reported confidence in dealing with palliative care patients and their knowledge of palliative care. RESULTS: Two hundred twenty-two medical students participated in this study. Students considered palliative care education relevant, especially training in patient-oriented care and communication with the patient. Students felt that several topics were inadequately covered in the curriculum. Overall, the students did not feel confident in providing palliative care (59.6%), especially in dealing with the spiritual aspect of palliative care (77%). The knowledge test shows that only 48% of the students answered more than half of the questions correctly. CONCLUSION: The students in this study are nearly junior doctors who will soon have to care for palliative patients. Although they think that palliative care is important, in their opinion the curriculum did not cover many important aspects, a perception that is also in line with their lack of confidence and knowledge in this domain. Therefore, it is important to improve palliative care education in the medical curriculum.

Exploring the effect of PAs on physician trainee learning: An interview study.

BACKGROUND: Physician assistants (PAs) often have been embedded in academic medical centers to help ensure an adequate patient care workforce while supporting compliance with work-hour restrictions for residents and fellows (also called trainees). Limited studies have explored the effect of PAs on trainee learning. This qualitative study explored, from the perspective of physician faculty and PAs, how PAs working in the clinical learning environment can enhance or hinder trainee learning. METHODS: Using purposive sampling, 12 PAs and 12 physician faculty members in one US teaching hospital were selected for semistructured interviews. Data collection and analysis were characterized by an iterative process. Data analysis was informed by principles of conventional content analysis. RESULTS: Participants identified various ways in which PAs may affect trainee learning, intrinsically linked to the roles PAs assume in the clinical learning environment: clinician, teammate, and clinical teacher. Trainee learning may be enhanced because learning time can be optimized by having PAs in the clinical learning environment. Trainees can learn about PAs and how to collaborate with them, and PAs can enculturate and provide clinical instruction to trainees. Trainee learning may be hindered if learning opportunities for trainees go to PAs, trainees feel intimidated by experienced PAs, or trainees become too dependent on PAs. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate enhancements and hindrances to trainees' learning linked to three key roles PAs perform in the clinical learning environment. These findings can inform how PAs are integrated into teaching services. Further investigation is needed to understand how PAs can balance their professional roles to foster effective collaborative practice and learning.

Factors hindering the implementation of surgical site infection control guidelines in the operating rooms of low-income countries: a mixed-method study.

The study aims to find the factors hindering the implementation of surgical site infection control guidelines in the operating rooms of low-income countries. The design of the study is a mixed-method sequential explanatory study. The setting is Shifa International Hospital and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan. Participants are health care workers. A questionnaire and structured key informant interviews probed the perspectives and perceptions of different stakeholders regarding the factors which hinder the implementation of surgical site infection control guidelines. Two-hundred fifty-two health care workers took part in the survey. The response rate was 90%. The majority of the participants was based in private teaching hospitals (63.9%) and 36.1% in the public sector teaching hospitals. The factors of surveillance, knowledge, education, and culture had low scores. Qualitative data analysis revealed the hindering factors in the implementation of surgical site infection control guidelines in the operating rooms of low-income country. The important one are lack of a surveillance system, education, and culture of infection control. This study identified hindering factors regarding implementation of surgical site infection control guidelines in the operating rooms at the institutional and individual level involved in patient care. The identification of these hindering factors may help politicians, policy makers, and institutions to identify the strategies for overcoming these hindering factors. Education is the key factor for success. By offering training to health care workers, we significantly contribute to decrease the incidence of SSIs in the low-income country.

Ward round simulation in final year medical students: Does it promote students learning?

INTRODUCTION: Ward round skills are essential for doctors in hospital settings. Literature shows medical students' deficiencies in these skills. Simulation has been used to train these skills. However, exposing learners to simulation at an early stage may be associated with a high cognitive load and limited learning. This study aims to determine how students experience this load and its interplay with performance and which factors promote and impair learning. METHODS: Fifty-six final year medical students participated in a simulated ward round training exercise. Both students' performance and cognitive load were measured to determine if there was any correlation and interviews were carried out to understand which factors support and impair learning. RESULTS: Performance scores revealed deficiencies in ward round skills. Students experienced a cognitive load that weakly correlated with performance. Qualitative findings provided important insights into simulated ward-based learning. It is clear that well-designed clinical scenarios, prioritization tasks, teamwork and feedback support students' learning process whereas distractions impair learning. CONCLUSIONS: WRS proved to be a good teaching method to improve clinical skills at this stage as the cognitive load is not too high to impair learning. Hence, including tasks in the simulation design can enhance the learning process.