gms | German Medical Science

Learning through Inquiry in Higher Education: Current Research and Future Challenges (INHERE 2018)

08.03. - 09.03.2018, München

A Novel Approach for the Analysis of Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation in Clinical Case Discussions

Meeting Abstract

  • author presenting/speaker Benedikt Lenzer - Klinikum der LMU München, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany
  • author Christian Ghanem - Katholische Stiftungsfachhochschule München, Munich, Germany
  • author Marc Weidenbusch - Klinikum der LMU München, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany
  • author Martin Fischer - Klinikum der LMU München, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany
  • corresponding author Jan Zottmann - Klinikum der LMU München, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany

Learning through Inquiry in Higher Education: Current Research and Future Challenges (INHERE 2018). München, 08.-09.03.2018. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2018. Doc18

doi: 10.3205/18inhere18, urn:nbn:de:0183-18inhere181

Published: March 1, 2018

© 2018 Lenzer et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Introduction: Scientific reasoning and argumentation (SRA) has been described as a compound of scientific discovery, scientific argumentation, and the understanding of the nature of science [1], [5]. This pilot study aimed to investigate SRA skills of medical students participating in Clinical Case Discussions (CCD), a peer teaching format designed to foster SRA activities such as evidence evaluation or hypothesis generation (cf. [2]).

Methods: We recruited 15 volunteer medical students (Mage=22.9 years, SD=2.2 years; 66% female; Mstudy year=3.7, SD= 0.9) of LMU Munich in the clinical phase of their studies (3rd to 6th year). These students participated in three CCD sessions which followed an admission-, discussion-, and summary-sequence respectively. CCD sessions typically lasted 90 to 120 minutes. Discussions were videotaped as well as audio-recorded and then transcribed. A content-analytic SRA coding-scheme that had previously been applied in the domain of social work [3] was adapted for the medical education context.

Results: Overall, participants in the CCD engaged themselves predominantly in SRA activities evidence generation (EG, 34%), communicating/scrutinising (CS, 26.2%), questioning (Q, 22.4%) and evidence evaluation (EE, 12.4%). The peer‐teachers were drivers of EG, CS and Q, whereas students engaged mostly in EE, hypothesis generation (HG), drawing conclusions (DC), and problem identification (PI).

Discussion: Our pilot study demonstrated that an in-depth analysis of SRA activities is feasible. The successful adaptation of a content-analytic SRA coding scheme from the domain of social work further supports the notion of a cross-domain validity of SRA activities as introduced in the framework by Fischer and colleagues [2]. The CCD triggered valuable SRA activities, underlining that this may be an appropriate teaching format to teach clinical reasoning skills to medical students as clinical reasoning can be seen as a specific kind of SRA [4].


References

1.
Engelmann K, Neuhaus BJ, Fischer F. Fostering scientific reasoning in education - meta-analytic evidence from intervention studies. Educ Res Eval. 2016;55(5-6):333-349. DOI: 10.1080/13803611.2016.1240089 External link
2.
Fischer F, Kollar I, Ufer S, Sodian B, Hussmann H, Pekrun R, Neuhaus B, Dorner B, Pankofer S, Fischer M, Strijbos JW, Heene M, Eberle J. Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation: Advancing an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda in Education. Frontline Learn Res. 2014;2:28-45.
3.
Ghanem C, Kollar I, Fischer F, Lawson TR, Pankofer S. How do social work novices and experts solve professional problems? A micro-analysis of epistemic activities and the use of evidence. Eur J Soc Work. 2018;21(1):3-19. DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2016.1255931 External link
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Kind PM. Establishing Assessment Scales Using a Novel Disciplinary Rationale for Scientific Reasoning. J Res Sci Teach. 2013;50(5):530-560. DOI: 10.1002/tea.21086 External link
5.
Ouellette DL, Zottmann J, Bolzer M, Fischer F, Fischer MR. Investigating the Interplay of Epistemological Beliefs and Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation. In: Laitko H, Mieg HA, Parthey H (Eds). Forschendes Lernen: Wissenschaftsforschung Jahrbuch 2016. Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin; 2017. p. 137-151.