Dissertation Defense Announcement

The College of Education announces the Final Dissertation of

Amy Hall

for the Degree of Doctor of Education

February 22, 2018 at 10:30 AM in Room 320, Ball Hall

Advisor: Amanda Rockinson-Szapkiw

Effect of a case-based online discussion forum on resident professionalism knowledge and skills

ABSTRACT: Teaching professionalism in graduate medical education is required by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Program directors face several challenges in developing and implementing methods to effectively teach professionalism. However, the benefits of implementing an effective method can lead to improved resident performance and knowledge, patient care outcomes, and teamwork interactions. An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of a professionalism traditional lecture versus a professionalism traditional lecture and a case-based online discussion forum on residents' professionalism skills and knowledge. Residents from Diagnostic Radiology and Family Medicine residency programs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center served as participants in a posttest only control group experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to a control (e.g. traditional lecture) and experimental group (e.g. traditional lecture and a case-based, online discussion forum). After the lecture, the experimental group participated in a four-week case-based, online discussion forum. Weekly discussions centered around case-based scenarios that highlight unprofessional behavior and encourage reflective discourse amongst the participants. Afterwards, professionalism skills of both groups were assessed via the P-MEX and knowledge base was assessed via a researcher created posttest. Two one-way between group analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data. As the data for both the P-MEX and the knowledge posttest were not normally distributed as assessed by the Shapiro Wilks test, the Kruskal-Wallis H Test was also conducted to verify the results. Both statistical tests revealed no statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups P-MEX and posttest scores. The results indicate that the case-based online discussion forum had little to no effect on residents' professionalism knowledge or skill levels.