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Understanding Faculty Perspectives About Student Workload When Developing Undergraduate Medical Curriculum: An Interview Study
Author(s) -
Godwin Joshua,
Pollock Jason,
Kauffman Christine,
Kibble Jonathan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.02757
Subject(s) - curriculum , workload , medical education , thematic analysis , class (philosophy) , psychology , student engagement , burnout , pedagogy , medicine , qualitative research , sociology , computer science , social science , clinical psychology , artificial intelligence , operating system
Despite the exponential growth in biomedical knowledge over the past century, the undergraduate medical curriculum has not increased in length. Faculty face a considerable challenge in developing curriculum that is up to date yet does not overwhelm learners with its sheer volume. The practice of continually adding content to an already extensive curriculum has been scrutinized by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and has been linked as negatively contributing to medical student burnout, mental health, and physical wellbeing. The goal of this interview study was to: 1) gain a deeper understanding of how faculty develop curriculum in terms of selecting content and pedagogy, 2) describe the faculty's expectations of students inside and outside the classroom, and 3) describe the faculty's conceptual understanding of workload placed on medical students. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with fourteen faculty members having major roles in delivering the M.D. curriculum. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using thematic content analysis revealing several major interconnected themes. Overall, the faculty viewed student engagement with them and the learning materials as the key mediators of student success. Faculty described ideal learners as curious, self‐regulated students who regularly used self‐assessment of their learning. Faculty identified the need for students to read more outside of class in preparation for the active learning sessions provided. While faculty broadly acknowledged that overwhelming workload is a detriment to student engagement, they either did not have, or did not wish to have, access to tools that would allow them to better assess student workload. Some faculty perceived misalignment between student goals and curriculum objectives, which may foster an informal curriculum and contribute to an overload in total student effort. To maximize student engagement with the formal curriculum, we propose that faculty receive more information on the importance of considering workload when developing curriculum and receive tools to properly assess student workload.