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      Scholarly concentration programs and medical student research productivity: a systematic review

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          Abstract

          Introduction

          Scholarly concentration programs have become a common method to promote student inquiry and independent research in medical schools. Given the high resource requirements of scholarly concentration program implementation, it is important to examine program efficacy. This systematic review examined the impact of scholarly concentration programs on student research productivity.

          Methods

          The authors carried out a literature search to find articles related to scholarly concentration program research productivity outcomes. The inclusion criterion was a method of rigorously evaluating program scholarly productivity. Study rigour was evaluated with the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument.

          Results

          The initial search disclosed 2467 unique records: 78 were considered based on titles and abstracts; eight were considered by scanning references. Eleven papers met the inclusion criteria: all were descriptive; none had a priori hypotheses that examined predictors of medical student research productivity in scholarly concentration programs or prospectively evaluated program impact on student scholarly output.

          Discussion

          While few in number and often lacking in rigour, the studies included herein suggest that adequate administrative support, strong mentorship and tailored program characteristics are essential in facilitating student research productivity in scholarly concentration programs. Given the challenges inherent in medical education research, a conceptual framework based on United Way’s approach may help program planners and educators address this gap in the evaluation of scholarly concentration programs.

          Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s40037-017-0328-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references30

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          Appraising the quality of medical education research methods: the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale-Education.

          The Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale-Education (NOS-E) were developed to appraise methodological quality in medical education research. The study objective was to evaluate the interrater reliability, normative scores, and between-instrument correlation for these two instruments.
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            Association between funding and quality of published medical education research.

            Methodological shortcomings in medical education research are often attributed to insufficient funding, yet an association between funding and study quality has not been established. To develop and evaluate an instrument for measuring the quality of education research studies and to assess the relationship between funding and study quality. Internal consistency, interrater and intrarater reliability, and criterion validity were determined for a 10-item medical education research study quality instrument (MERSQI). This was applied to 210 medical education research studies published in 13 peer-reviewed journals between September 1, 2002, and December 31, 2003. The amount of funding obtained per study and the publication record of the first author were determined by survey. Study quality as measured by the MERSQI (potential maximum total score, 18; maximum domain score, 3), amount of funding per study, and previous publications by the first author. The mean MERSQI score was 9.95 (SD, 2.34; range, 5-16). Mean domain scores were highest for data analysis (2.58) and lowest for validity (0.69). Intraclass correlation coefficient ranges for interrater and intrarater reliability were 0.72 to 0.98 and 0.78 to 0.998, respectively. Total MERSQI scores were associated with expert quality ratings (Spearman rho, 0.73; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.56-0.84; P < .001), 3-year citation rate (0.8 increase in score per 10 citations; 95% CI, 0.03-1.30; P = .003), and journal impact factor (1.0 increase in score per 6-unit increase in impact factor; 95% CI, 0.34-1.56; P = .003). In multivariate analysis, MERSQI scores were independently associated with study funding of $20 000 or more (0.95 increase in score; 95% CI, 0.22-1.86; P = .045) and previous medical education publications by the first author (1.07 increase in score per 20 publications; 95% CI, 0.15-2.23; P = .047). The quality of published medical education research is associated with study funding.
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              Conceptual frameworks to illuminate and magnify.

              In a recent study of the quality of reporting experimental studies in medical education, barely half the articles examined contained an explicit statement of the conceptual framework used. Conceptual frameworks represent ways of thinking about a problem or a study, or ways of representing how complex things work. They can come from theories, models or best practices. Conceptual frameworks illuminate and magnify one's work. Different frameworks will emphasise different variables and outcomes, and their inter-relatedness. Educators and researchers constantly use conceptual frameworks to guide their work, even if they themselves are not consciously aware of the frameworks. Three examples are provided on how conceptual frameworks can be used to cast development and research projects in medical education. The examples are accompanied by commentaries and a total of 13 key points about the nature and use of conceptual frameworks. Ultimately, scholars are responsible for making explicit the assumptions and principles contained in the conceptual framework(s) they use in their development and research projects.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                paul_greenberg@brown.edu
                Journal
                Perspect Med Educ
                Perspect Med Educ
                Perspectives on Medical Education
                Bohn Stafleu van Loghum (Houten )
                2212-2761
                2212-277X
                27 March 2017
                27 March 2017
                August 2017
                : 6
                : 4
                : 216-226
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9094, GRID grid.40263.33, Program in Liberal Medical Education, , Brown University, ; Providence, RI USA
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9094, GRID grid.40263.33, School of Public Health, , Brown University, ; Providence, RI USA
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9094, GRID grid.40263.33, Division of Ophthalmology, , Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, ; Providence, RI USA
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0420 4094, GRID grid.413904.b, Section of Ophthalmology, , Providence VA Medical Center, ; Providence, RI USA
                Article
                328
                10.1007/s40037-017-0328-2
                5542888
                28349265
                be7c0535-9c83-4f60-a641-887974ba49bb
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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                Categories
                Review Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Education
                scholarly concentration,scholarly activity,program evaluation
                Education
                scholarly concentration, scholarly activity, program evaluation

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