Developing consensus on content and format of e-portfolio for MHPE students: A Delphi study.

OBJECTIVE: To build a consensus on portfolio framework for master's in health professional education students and document programme learning outcomes, tasks for students related to each outcome, and the pieces of evidence regarding the completion of each task. METHODS: The modified Delphi study was conducted from February to July 2020 at Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan, and comprised a three-round electronic-based survey of faculty members associated with the master's in health professional education programme, alumni, and current students as well as portfolio experts. The panellists had to choose from 10 programme learning outcomes, 75 tasks for students to achieve those outcomes, and 510 pieces of evidence to confirm that the tasks had been done to achieve the outcomes. A consensus cut-off of ≥80% was decided to select the item. RESULTS: Of the 45 stakeholders approached, 41(91.5%) responded in round 1. Of them, 31(75.6%) responded in round 2, while round 3 comprised responses from 31(96.7%) subjects. The draft template was originally derived from the master's in health professional education programme guide, expert opinions, and systematic literature review available for portfolios of other higher education degrees. The list of items was refined through a pilot study. The final template was approved by the expert panel after 3 iterations. The final list of items included 59 (78.6%) tasks and 105(21%) pieces of evidence related to all the 10 programme learning outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The important programme learning outcomes, their related tasks, and the required pieces of evidence to be added in the e-portfolio of master's in health professional education programme students were identified, and recommendations for the format of implementation and assessment were given.

Is behaviourism really dead? A scoping review to document the presence of behaviourism in current medical education.

Behaviourism is the underpinning learning theory of many teaching and assessment tools utilised to enhance the effectiveness of learning. Feedback, reinforcements, motivation, learning outcomes and objectives are a few among many which are implied by the medical teachers while teaching both basic and clinical sciences to students. The claim of behaviourism being redundant or dead is not based on realities. The behaviourist approach is and will remain the most powerful theory to be implied in educational processes for gaining successful outcomes.

Self and Peer Assessment of Teachers' Attitude towards Teaching.

OBJECTIVE: To appraise the attitude of the teachers towards teaching and the factors affecting their attitudes, and compare self-assessed attitudes of the medical teachers with teachers in social sciences. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Wah Medical College (WMC), Wah Cantt, from January to August 2016. METHODOLOGY: Teachers were categorized as having positive, average, and below average attitudes on the basis of a close-ended questionnaire comprising of 32 items. All the items were ranked on 5 points Likert-scale. Questionnaires were filled by the teachers twice, first for themselves and then for their peers. RESULTS: There were 91 self-assessments [53 medical teachers (MT) and 38 social sciences teachers (SST)], and 59 peer assessments (31 MT and 28 SST). Overall, the attitude of teachers was average as 99 teachers (66%) fell in this category. Out of 53 MT, 9 (17%) had a positive attitude and 43 (81.1%) had average attitude. Out of 38 SST, 5 (13.2%) had positive attitude and 21 (55.3%) had average attitude. MT self-accounted attitude was significantly higher than the SST (x²=15.975, p=<0.001) in comparison to peer assessed attitude, which was equal in the two groups (x²=2.778, p=0.249). Variables significantly associated with good attitude, were female gender, junior designation and more experienced. CONCLUSION: Overall teachers attitude was average in both faculties. But the self-accounted attitude was higher among MT than SST. Teachers who are junior in qualification and designation, females, medical by profession, and more experienced need to improve their self-assessment and reflection skills.

Quality Of Educational Environment At Wah Medical College: Assessment By Using Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure.

BACKGROUND: Educational environment not only has an impact on the students during the academic years but has its reflections throughout their medical career. The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is an internationally accepted useful tool to analyse undergraduate educational environments in the health professionals. The purpose of this study was to assess how students, across all the five years in a private medical college, perceive their educational environment. METHODS: It was a cross sectional study, which used the DREEM inventory at Wah Medical College over the course of 6 months (January-June 2015). All 500 students were included in the study. The fifty items DREEM inventory, having the maximum score of two hundred indicating ideal educational environment was used for data collection. RESULTS: The questionnaire was completed by 400 undergraduate medical students (response rate 80%). The overall DREEM score was 122.63/200 (61.3%), indicating that the perception of the learning environment was more positive than negative. Among the highest scoring categories were students' participation in classes, relaxed atmosphere and confidence in passing the annual exams. However, many areas requiring improvement were also brought to attention. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the student's perception of their learning environment at Wah Medical College was found to be positive. This study did bring to light some areas that could be improved upon. This should enable the faculty to adopt changes in their teaching methods to make the learning process more productive and enjoyable for future students.

DENGUE EPIDEMICS: KNOWLEDGE PERHAPS IS THE ONLY KEY TO SUCCESS.

BACKGROUND: Dengue fever/dengue haemorrhagic fever is a re-emerging vector-borne viral illness that is endemic in Tropics and poses a major public health burden in many countries of South East Asia, The objectives of the study were to correlate the dengue fever knowledge and preventive practices with age, gender, education, occupation and marital status of people of Wah Cantt. and to determine the association between knowledge level and preventive practices. METHODS: This cross-sectional Survey was done in Wah Cantt from July to Dec 2011. Three hundred and sixty-three participants were selected through Stratified Random Sampling. Data on the knowledge and practice of the participants was collected by using structured questionnaire by the researcher. Knowledge and preventive practices were given scores on each correct response and participants were categorized into different groups according to their scores, i.e., excellent, good, poor and negligible. Associations were computed using Chi-square and Bivariate Correlation. p-value < 0.05 was taken significant. RESULTS: Mean age was 35.7 +/- 12.1 years. More participants were male (64.5%). Male sex, old age, employment without specific qualification and being parents had significant associations with both levels of knowledge and preventive practices. Level of knowledge was highly associated with levels of practice X2=79.1, df=9, p=0.000 and r=0.464 and p=0.000. CONCLUSION: The knowledge and preventive practices of people are related to their gender, marital status, age and occupation. Unexpectedly education has no association with knowledge or better preventive behaviour. Preventive practices get better where knowledge levels are more, emphasizing the need of community education programmes.