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Innovative technological possibilities, new scientific insights in healthcare and increasingly complex patient stories: A different type of healthcare professional is needed with interdisciplinary and collaborative competencies, even across organizational structures and academic disciplines. In universities, the interdisciplinary approach in education, therefore, is swiftly gaining popularity. However, empirical evidence about the learning outcomes and best ways to design interdisciplinary education are still lacking.
An interdisciplinary research team aims to identify the challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary learning in medical education. The project group, led by PhD-candidate Jessica Oudenampsen (Radboudumc Health Academy / Hematology / Radboud University, department of Language and Communication), published the results in BMC Medical Education in march 2023.
The research took place in the context of the interdisciplinary minor ‘Healthcare communication, management and organization’, open for students of Medicine, Communication- and Information sciences and Management. Focus-group interviews revealed three differences in epistemics between students of different disciplines, i.e., their believes about the optimal curriculum content, preferences for educational formats and their perceptions about their own competencies and that of students from the other discipline. These factors influenced the way students evaluated themselves, each other and the synergy that is achieved throughout the interdisciplinary course.
These empirical results are crucial to tailor interdisciplinary education to each specific discipline and to take interdisciplinary learning to a higher level of maturity. At the moment, the research group is formulating a full set of design principles for interdisciplinary learning. With their research, the research group aims to provide a solid basis to further develop and assess the effectiveness of interdisciplinary learning to be able to reach the full potential of interdisciplinary education in the future.
Read the study here
Oudenampsen, J., van de Pol, M., Blijlevens, N., Das, E. Interdisciplinary education affects student learning: a focus group study. BMC Medical Education 23, 169 (2023).
