Renate Kahlke

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at McMaster University

Introduction Interviews are central to many qualitative studies in health professions education (HPE). However, researchers often struggle to elicit rich data and engage diverse participants who may find this strategy exclusionary. Elicitation techniques are strategies tailored to address these challenges, enhancing oral conversations through other...

Healthcare inequity is a persistent systemic problem, yet many solutions have historically focused on “debiasing” individuals. Individualistic strategies fit within a competency-based medical education and assessment paradigm, whereby professional values of social accountability, patient safety, and healthcare equity are linked to an individual cli...

Introduction Interviews are central to many qualitative studies in health professions education (HPE). However, researchers often rely only on oral questioning despite the existence of techniques tailored to elicit the rich data needed to address complex problems and meaningfully engage participants. Elicitation techniques are strategies – e.g. par...

Introduction While health advocacy is a key component of many competency frameworks, mounting evidence suggests that learners do not see it as core to their learning and future practice. When learners do advocate for their patients, they characterize this work as ‘going above and beyond’ for a select few patients. When they think about advocacy in...

Objectives: This paper stems from a desire to deepen our own understanding of why women might 'say no' when allies and sponsors offer or create opportunities for advancement, leadership or recognition. The resulting disparity between representation by men and women in leadership positions, invited keynote speakers and publication counts in academi...

Introduction: Although the CanMEDS framework sets the standard for Canadian training, health advocacy competence does not appear to factor heavily into high stakes assessment decisions. Without forces motivating uptake, there is little movement by educational programs to integrate robust advocacy teaching and assessment practices. However, by adop...

This is a joint project between the McMaster Education Research, Innovation, and Theory (MERIT) unit, McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences Program for Faculty Development, and the McMaster Masters in Health Sciences Education program. This e-book has been published via McMaster University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Office of Continuing Professio...

Introduction: Learners and physicians are expected to practice as health advocates in Canadian contexts, but they rarely feel competent to practice this critical role when they complete their training. This is in part because advocacy is seen as "going above and beyond" routine practice and pushing the boundaries of systems that are resistant to c...

Purpose: Professional identity formation (PIF), can be defined as the integration of the knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors of a profession with one's pre-existing identity and values. Several different, and sometimes conflicting, conceptualizations and theories about PIF populate the literature; applying these different theories in PIF curr...

Qualitative research relies on nuanced judgements that require researcher reflexivity, yet reflexivity is often addressed superficially or overlooked completely during the research process. In this AMEE Guide, we define reflexivity as a set of continuous, collaborative, and multifaceted practices through which researchers self-consciously critique,...

When Hubinette et al. say 'health advocacy' they encourage a broad view that invites opportunities to address social and structural determinants of health, enabling physicians to be agents of change.

Introduction: Effective continuing professional development (CPD) is critical for safe and effective health care. Recent shifts have called for a move away from didactic CPD, which often fails to affect practice, toward workplace learning such as clinical coaching. Unfortunately, coaching programs are complex, and adoption does not guarantee effec...

Context Health advocacy is a core component of physician competency frameworks. However, advocacy has lacked a clear definition and is understood and enacted variably across contexts. Due to their mobility across contexts, learners are uniquely positioned to provide insight into the tensions that have made this role so difficult to define, but that...

In 2001, Prensky characterised a new generation of learners entering higher education as digital natives – naturally digitally literate and inherently proficient users of technology. While many educational technology researchers have long argued for the need to move beyond the digital native assumptions proposed by Prensky and other futurists, a cr...

Safe and effective healthcare requires that new knowledge or skills, once learned, are incorporated into professional practice. However, this process is not always straightforward. Learning takes place in complex contexts, requiring practitioners to overcome various motivational, systemic, emotional, and social barriers to the application of knowle...

Purpose: Health professions education scholarship unit (HPESU) leaders often struggle to articulate their impact within local contexts. Previous research has described what markers of success and institutional logics to consider when crafting statements of impact; there is a need to clarify how HPESU leaders convey their messages to navigate compe...

While the academic community and the general public often refer to learners today as inherently tech-savvy digital natives, those in the educational technology community have long advocated for a move away from digital native stereotypes in favour of fostering digital literacy. As such, the educational technology community can play a vital role in...

While the academic community and the general public often refer to learners today as inherently tech- savvy digital natives, those in the educational technology community have long advocated for a move away from digital native stereotypes in favour of fostering digital literacy. As such, the educational technology community can play a vital role in...

Kahlke et al. illuminate key concepts underpinning Sociocultural learning theory as a way of explaining how it offers a lens through which health professional educators might reconsider routine interactions.

Community service-learning (CSL) is increasingly seen as an educational approach that can enhance student engagement and serve community needs. However, CSL programs are highly variable in their structures and goals, leading to variability in the outcomes sought and attained. In this paper, we map out the structures and priorities of CSL programs i...

Introduction: Calls for enabling 'critical thinking' are ubiquitous in health professional education. However, there is little agreement in the literature or in practice as to what this term means and efforts to generate a universal definition have found limited traction. Moreover, the variability observed might suggest that multiplicity has value...

A Book Review of:A REVIEW OF POPULAR CULTURE AS PEDAGOGY: RESEARCH IN THE FIELD ADULT EDUATIONKaela Jubas, Nancy Taber, and Tony Brown (Eds.). Sense Publishers, Boston, 2015, 168 pages.

This paper explores how community service-learning (CSL) participants negotiate competing institutional logics in Canadian higher education. Drawing theoretically from new institutionalism and work on institutional logics, we consider how CSL has developed in Canadian universities and how participants discuss CSL in relation to other dominant insti...

Historically, health professions education has focused on content knowledge. However, there has been increasing recognition that there is a need to focus on the thinking processes required of future health professionals. To this end, educators in the health professions have looked to the concept of critical thinking. But what does it mean to “think...

Generic qualitative research studies are those that refuse to claim allegiance to a single established methodology. There has been significant debate in the qualitative literature regarding the extent to which rigour can be preserved outside of the guidelines of an established methodology. This article offers a starting place for researchers intere...

Historically, health science education has focused on content knowledge. However, there has been in- creasing recognition that education must focus more on the thinking processes required of future health professionals. In an effort to teach these processes, educators of health science students have looked to the concept of critical thinking. But w...

Health Science teams are increasingly interprofessional and often require use of information communication technology. These shifts result in a need for health science students to learn online interprofessional teamwork skills early in their training. In response, one interprofessional communication skills course was remodelled from traditional Pro...