Assessing student characteristics in palliative care education research: a literature review.

BACKGROUND: Assessing characteristics in educational research is important to describe a student sample. However, consistency in measuring student characteristics is lacking, particularly in palliative and end-of-life (PEOL) care education research. METHODS: A literature review was conducted to determine the primary characteristics to assess in PEOL education research, the corresponding level of measurement and associated statistical analyses to perform with the data. RESULTS: Key characteristics to measure include: age, previous PEOL healthcare experience, previous personal experience with death/loss, previous PEOL education, program of enrolment and religion. Gender, ethnicity/race and living situation/place of residence were not supported as key characteristics to assess. Best methods by which to measure characteristics remain unclear and the utilisation of characteristics in research is inconsistent. CONCLUSION: Identified characteristics should be measured in PEOL education research at the highest level of measurement. The influence of characteristics on outcomes should be considered in association with research questions.