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Introduction: Research suggests that students' perceptions should be considered in any discussion of their education, but there has been no systematic examination of New Zealand postgraduate dental students' learning experiences. This study aimed to obtain in-depth qualitative insights into student and graduate perceptions of effective and ineffective learning in postgraduate dental education. Methods: Data were collected in 2010 using semi-structured individual interviews. Participants included final-year students and graduates of the University of Otago Doctor of Clinical Dentistry programme. Using the Critical Incident Technique, participants were asked to describe atleast one effective and one ineffective learning experience in detail. Interview transcripts were analysed using a general inductive approach. Results: Broad themes which emerged included supervisory approaches, characteristics of the learning process, and the physical learning environment. This paper considers students' and graduates' perceptions of postgraduate supervision in dentistry as it promotes or precludes effective learning. Effective learning was associated by participants with approachable and supportive supervisory practices, and technique demonstrations accompanied by explicit explanations. Ineffective learning was associated with minimal supervisor demonstrations and guidance (particularly when beginning postgraduate study), and aggressive, discriminatory and/or culturally insensitive supervisory approaches. Conclusion: Participants' responses provided rich, in-depth insights into their reflections and understandings of effective and ineffective approaches to supervision as it influenced their learning in the clinical and research settings. These findings provide a starting point for the development of curriculum and supervisory practices, enhancement of supervisory and mentoring approaches, and the design of continuing education programmes for supervisors at an institutional level. Additionally, these findings might also stimulate topics for reflection and discussion amongst dental educators and administrators more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commitment to change (CTC) statements have been shown to have a useful role as an instrument of change. We explored the experiences of six health professionals at a large community teaching hospital in making and keeping CTC statements in the context of a foundational interprofessional education (IPE) faculty development program. As part of program evaluation, a qualitative study, applying a grounded theory approach, was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of using CTC statements in the context of a paradigmatic organizational change project. This paper explores the effectiveness of an IPE faculty development program at a community teaching hospital. Participants identified personal/professional and interpersonal/interprofessional changes related to CTC statements. The study highlighted a range of issues surrounding implementation of collaborative actions connected to participants' ability to follow through on commitment to change statements made during the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-stakes assessments are theorised to stimulate and support self-regulated learning. They are feedback-, not decision-oriented, and should hold little consequences to a learner based on their performance. The use of low-stakes assessment as a learning opportunity requires an environment in which continuous improvement is encouraged. This may be hindered by learners' perceptions of assessment as high-stakes. Teachers play a key role in learners' assessment perceptions. By investigating assessment perceptions through an interpersonal theory-based perspective of teacher-learner relationships, we aim to better understand the mechanisms explaining the relationship between assessment and learning within medical education. First, twenty-six purposefully selected learners, ranging from undergraduates to postgraduates in five different settings of programmatic assessment, were interviewed about their assessment task perception. Next, we conducted a focussed analysis using sensitising concepts from interpersonal theory to elucidate the influence of the teacher-learner relationship on learners' assessment perceptions. The study showed a strong relation between learners' perceptions of the teacher-learner relationship and their assessment task perception. Two important sources for the perception of teachers' agency emerged from the data: positional agency and expert agency. Together with teacher's communion level, both types of teachers' agency are important for understanding learners' assessment perceptions. High levels of teacher communion had a positive impact on the perception of assessment for learning, in particular in relations in which teachers' agency was less dominantly exercised. When teachers exercised these sources of agency dominantly, learners felt inferior to their teachers, which could hinder the learning opportunity. To utilise the learning potential of low-stakes assessment, teachers are required to stimulate learner agency in safe and trusting assessment relationships, while carefully considering the influence of their own agency on learners' assessment perceptions. Interpersonal theory offers a useful lens for understanding assessment relationships. The Interpersonal Circumplex provides opportunities for faculty development that help teachers develop positive and productive relationships with learners in which the potential of low-stakes assessments for self-regulated learning is realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a modified Bayesian method for teaching clinical reasoning to medical students. Topics covered include high level of satisfaction with the faculty development program, students and faculty's opinion that the modified Bayesian approach is effective in encouraging the development of clinical reasoning skills and the development of case-based teaching around the modified Bayesian approach.