Research ArticleAbstract
Introduction: Faculty training is critical to implement PBL educational strategy; the training enrich understanding about PBL process and develop facilitation skills to run tutorial smoothly. Universal College of Medical Sciences Bhairahawa, Nepal organized one day “workshop on PBL for tutors” with the objective to prepare faculty members for implementation of PBL. The objective this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess it.
Methodology: A one-day “Workshop on PBL for Tutors” was conducted in June 04, 2019. At the end of training workshop, feedback of the participant faculty members was taken on the valid semi-structured questionnaire comprised of four parts; Part A-Demographic information, Part B. Overall feedback on training, Part C. Feedback on specific sessions and Part D. Feedback for improvement. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS version 21.
Results: The participants rated this training workshop on scale 1-10 (1= poor, 10=excellent) about its usefulness (8.11±1.36), content (7.44±1.33), relevance (7.78± 1.09), facilitation (7.89± 1.05) and overall (8.00± 0.70). The faculty rated specific sessions on Likert scale 1-4 (4=extremely important, 3=moderately important, 2=slightly important, 1=not important); session on “PBL Process” 3.11±0.60, session on “Role of Tutor” 3.00±0.50, session on “Designing problem package for PBL” 3.11±0.33 and session on “Conducting PBL Tutorial” 3.33±0.50. Majority of the participants suggested to increase duration of workshop for better understanding of subject and sufficient time for practice for developing scenario, triggers and tutor guide
Results: The participants rated this training workshop on scale 1-10 (1= poor, 10=excellent) about its usefulness (8.11±1.36), content (7.44±1.33), relevance (7.78± 1.09), facilitation (7.89± 1.05) and overall (8.00± 0.70). The faculty rated specific sessions on Likert scale 1-4 (4=extremely important, 3=moderately important, 2=slightly important, 1=not important); session on “PBL Process” 3.11±0.60, session on “Role of Tutor” 3.00±0.50, session on “Designing problem package for PBL” 3.11±0.33 and session on “Conducting PBL Tutorial” 3.33±0.50. Majority of the participants suggested to increase duration of workshop for better understanding of subject and sufficient time for practice for developing scenario, triggers and tutor guide
Conclusion: It seems from the rating; the participants professed the importance of this short-term training and its’ worth in implementation of PBL.
Keywords: Feedback; PBL; Training; Tutor
Introduction
Problem- based learning (PBL) is a student-centered, problemsolving instructional strategy, approach or method in which the learners first encounter a problem, followed by a systematic, enquiry process and self-directed leaning [1-3]. PBL has been used as an educational strategy for half century since it was first adopted by McMaster University in Canada in 1969. It has now been included in curriculum at many medical schools all over the world including Asia [4,5]. Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Bhairahawa, Nepal is affiliated with Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine (TU-IOM) Kathmandu Nepal following TU-IOM curriculum both for undergraduate and postgraduate programs in medicine, dentistry and nursing. The current undergraduate medicine (MBBS) curriculum (2008) of TU-IOM is integrated and community oriented. The problem-based teaching learning strategy is just mentioned in the curriculum but not practiced as such . PBL is informally experimented in its 2 affiliated medical colleges i.e. KIST Medical College Lalitpur and Chitwan Medical College Bharatpur [6,7].
All of the faculty members at UCMS have expertise in the discipline in which they were trained during their postgraduate training. Majority of them got six days basic teachers training but most of them neither received training for tutoring a PBL nor have experience in conducting PBL. UCMS has planned to pilot PBL strategy in first and second year MBBS and BDS during academic year 2019. For successful implementation of PBL educational strategy faculty training is essential to enrich their understanding about PBL process and enhance facilitation skills to conduct tutorial [8]. So, UCMS organized one day workshop on PBL for tutor with the objective to prepare faculty members for implementation of PBL. The objective this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess it.
Methodology
A one-day “Workshop on PBL for Tutors” was conducted in June 04, 2019 at Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Teaching Hospital (TH), Bhairahawa, Nepal by lead author and third author as resource persons. The main objective of workshop was to prepare faculty members for implementation of PBL in UCMS. The specific objectives were to understand the PBL process, recognize the role of tutor in conducting PBL session. design and develop PBL packages including formulation of scenario, triggers, tutor guide and orient students on PBL process. Nine faculty members, three from dental college and six from basic sciences (one each from department of anatomy, physiology, pathology, microbiology, community medicine, and pharmacology) participated in training. The third author was resource person from department of biochemistry. The session conducted in workshop were on concept, principles, significance and process of PBL, role of tutor, designing problem packages, conducting PBL tutorial and orient students about PBL. The methods used for conducting workshop were plenary session, brainstorming, and small group work, discussion and presentation. The objective this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess it. So, at the end of training workshop, feedback of the participant faculty members was taken on the valid semi-structured questionnaire comprised of four parts.
a) Demographic information
b) Overall feedback on training
c) Feedback on specific sessions
d) Feedback for improvement
a) Demographic information: Info was taken on age in years,
sex, year of graduation and post-graduation, year of experience
and participation in any training related to PBL before.
b) Overall feedback on training: This part contained one
close ended question rating workshop on scale 1-10 (1=poor,
10=excellent) for usefulness, content, relevance, facilitation
and training as overall.
c) Feedback on specific sessions: This part covered four
closed ended questions on specific sessions conducted in
workshop: session on “PBL Process”, session on “Role of Tutor”,
session on “Designing problem package for PBL” and session on
“Conducting PBL Tutorial”.
d) Feedback for improvement: This part had three open
ended questions; one was on good points/strengths of training,
second on areas for improvement and third for additional
comments.
The informed consent was taken from the participants and ethical approval was obtained from institutional review committee of UCMS. The data collected was checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency. It was entered in IBMS SPSS version 21 for analysis. Descriptive analysis was done; the frequency, mean and standard deviation were computed.
Results
Demographic Information
The age of the participant faculty members was 33.11±1.76 years (range 27-32 years); 3 were males and 6 females. Their year of graduation was between 2004-2012, while post-graduation 2011-2016 and teaching experience to undergraduate between 2-7 years. Only one participant received related training before. Three faculty members were from dental college while 6 were from basic sciences.
Overall Feedback on Training Workshop
The participant faculty members rated “Workshop on PBL for Tutors” on scale of 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent); the rating was notable (Table 1).
Table 1: Rating of the participant faculty members on “Workshop on PBL for Tutors”.
Feedback on Specific Sessions
The rating of the participant faculty members on specific sessions conducted in “Workshop on PBL for Tutors” was remarkable.
Table 2: Rating of the participant faculty members on specific session of “Workshop on PBL for Tutors”.
Feedback for Improvement
The strengths/good points of workshop shared by the participants were: understanding PBL, role of tutor, tutor guide and self-directed learning, process of conducting PBL, interactive sessions, small group work discussion, excellent resource persons, and practical approach of resource persons. The suggestions were: to increase duration of workshop for better learning about subject and doing practice especially for developing scenario, triggers and tutor guide, increase number of participants in workshop, conduct more such type of workshops, and organize workshop in more spacious room. The Additional comments were good initiation for implementation of PBL for undergraduate students, conduct refresher training on PBL on regular basis for tutors, and cover every aspect of PBL.
Discussion
The role of tutor as a facilitator is very significant in PBL as learning of students also depend upon understanding of tutor about PBL process, facilitation of tutor to students for self-directed learning, promoting critical thinking of students, encouraging students’ participation, appreciating his/her role in the small group discussion session, and providing feedback as a part of formative assessment [4]. So, prior to implementation of PBL UCMS organized one day training workshop for faculty members on “PBL for Tutor” for appreciating and understanding the changing role of teacher as a facilitator in PBL. This study has assessed the feedback of participant faculty members on training workshop at level I (Reaction) of Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation [3,9]. The participants rated this training workshop on scale 1-10 about its usefulness (8.11±1.36), content (7.44±1.33), relevance (7.78± 1.09), facilitation (7.89± 1.05) and overall (8.00± 0.70). The rating was remarkable. It seems they were satisfied. Their rating on specific sessions conducted in workshop on Likert scale 1-4 were also noticeable: session on “PBL Process” 3.11±0.60, session on “Role of Tutor” 3.00±0.50, session on “Designing problem package for PBL” 3.11±0.33 and session on “Conducting PBL Tutorial 3.33±0.50”. It appears they were content. The findings of this study are comparable to the findings of other studies done on feedback of participants on similar sort of training on PBL conducted in Asia [3,8-10].
The majority of the participants in this study suggested to increase duration of workshop for better learning about subject and doing practice especially for developing scenario, triggers and tutor guide. The similar sort of feedback shared by the participants of half-day training “PBL: Tutorial Facilitation Skills Workshop” conducted at Agha Khan University (AKU) Karachi Pakistan, held during the academic year 2003-2004. Later on, AKU extended the duration of workshop to two and half days [11]. The suggestion of participants of this study is very valid as increased duration of training will provide enough opportunity to the participant for hands-on exercises. The limitation of this study are small sample size and findings revealing just reaction of the participants on this short duration of training workshop. But the feedback of the participants is positive.
Conclusion
It seems from the rating; the participants acknowledged the importance of this short-term training workshop and its’ value and significance in implementation of PBL. The tutors recognized their role in implementation of PBL process. This will help in systematic implementation of PBL.
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