A PhD to Innovate Student Feedback in Clinical Practice Through an Interdisciplinary Co-Design Approach at University of East Anglia

Background   

Health professions students engage with learning and assessments in both academic and clinical practice settings. Feedback from clinical educators/assessors is critical to enhancing students’ future clinical performance, particularly workplace-based assessment has become a vital assessment component across professional health degree programmes. Students complete clinical assessments to demonstrate safe and effective person-centred care, while clinical educators/assessors are professionally qualified in their clinical specialties and are the ‘gatekeepers’ to ensure health professions graduates are safe and competent to practise. It is acknowledged that clinical educators/assessors do spend a lot of time and effort to provide students with feedback despite their busy clinical schedule. However, at times students felt that they had not been provided with adequate feedback. It appears that there is a mis-match between students and educators/assessors expectations of feedback. There is limited research on systematic and comprehensive support to students to understand the feedback provided, reflect on it and take actions; and to educators/assessors to provide feedback that could inform students of how to improve their future performance in the context of clinical practice. 

This project will explore facilitators and barriers to providing feedback and acting on feedback encountered by clinical educators/assessors and students, followed by co-designing innovative interventions (e.g., a visualisation tool and a resource package) and evaluating the interventions to support the effective use of feedback on enhancing student clinical performance. 

Research methodology 

A case study and co-designing methodology will be used. 

Phase 1: Conduct a systematic review of the facilitators and barriers to effective provision and use of feedback on student assessment in clinical practice. 

Phase 2: Codesign fit-for-purpose interventions with key stakeholder groups (students, clinical and academic educators/assessors) to support the provision and use of feedback to enhance student clinical performance.  

Phase 3: Pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of the co-designed interventions using a realist evaluation approach. 

Training 

• Understanding and applying the co-design methodology
• Data analysis of qualitative data using a data management system (e.g. NVivo)
• Data visualisation skills 

Person specification 

• Have an interest in health professions education
• Have experience in collecting and analysing qualitative data (preferred not essential)

This PhD project is in a Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences competition for funded studentships.  These studentships are funded for 3 years and comprise UK (Home) fees, an annual stipend of £18,622 and £1,000 per annum for research training (RTSG). International applicants may apply but are required to secure additional funding to fund the difference between UK and overseas tuition fees (visit: https://www.uea.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/fees for details of Home and Overseas fee rates).

Primary Supervisor:

Start Date: October 2024

For more information on this project, please visit https://www.uea.ac.uk/search/courses/