Medical Education Unit Research

The Medical Education Unit is engaged in a wide variety of research projects across the medical education spectrum.

We collaborate with other departments and research centres in UWS as well as other medical schools both in Australia and internationally.

For more details on any of these projects, please contact the Medical Education Unit team.

Selecting medical students

Project Title: Selecting medical students
Research Team: David Harding (PhD student), Barbara Griffin (College of Health & Science), Ian Wilson, Neville Yeomans (School of Medicine)

David Harding, supervised by Ian Wilson and Alex Yeung (Centre for Education Research), has completed completed his doctorate on selection.  Barbara Griffin, Ian Wilson and Neville Yeomans continue to research the Multiple mini-interviews and UMAT used in the selection of medical students to the UWS program.  Multiple publications have arisen from this research:

  1. Griffin B, Wilson I.  Associations between the big five personality factors and multiple mini-interviews. Advances in Health Sciences Education. 2012; 17(3): 377 – 388
  2. Wilson I, Roberts C, Flynn E, Griffin B.  Only the best: medical student selection in Australia.  Medical Journal of Australia, 2012; 196(5):359
  3. Griffin B, Wilson I.  Interviewer bias in medical student selection.  Medical Journal of Australia. 2010; 193(6):343-346
  4. Griffin B, Harding D, Wilson I, Yeomans N.  Does practice make perfect? The effect of coaching and retesting on selection tests used for admission to an Australian medical school.  Medical Journal of Australia, 2008; 189 (5): 270 - 273

    Simulation and medical education

    Project Title: Integrating problem-based-learning, lecture and practical basic sciences knowledge using simulation - A pilot study
    Research Team: Janet Chan, Ian Wilson, Vaughan Macefield, John Morley, David Mahns
    Funding: School of Medicine

    Simulation has been used extensively to teach medical students clinical skills. In this project we are exploring the use of simulation to teach basic physiology and pathophysiology in the early years of the course.  The first phase of this project has been completed, but a second round of data collection is in planning.

    Home-grown doctors

    Project Title: Keeping pace: A critical longitudinal analysis of the psychosocial determinants of seeding success in educating home-grown doctors for regional communities
    Research Team: Rhonda Craven, Ian Wilson
    Funding: ARC Discovery Project (DP0988136)

    Australia currently has a medical workforce situation which, if unchecked, will see a deepening of the shortage of doctors in rural and regional communities. Elucidating the impact of psychosocial drivers on medical education outcomes will identify potent practical strategies that seed success. The outcomes of this research have the potential to 'break the cycle' of doctor shortages in underserved areas by generating new solutions to: improve Australia's capacity to strengthen home-grown medical education; address doctor shortages regionally; and build capacity at community and individual levels. This ARC funded research project has completed data gathering and analysis is under way.  A second paper is currently under review.

    Jackman K, Wilson I, Seaton M, Craven R.  Big fish in a big pond: a study of academic self concept in first year medical students.  BMC Medical Education 2011, 11:48 (27 July 2011)

    Competence in clinical psychology students

    Project Title: Assessing the competence of masters of clinical psychology students
    Research Team: Leanne Humphreys (PhD student, School of Medicine), Ian Wilson, Rocco Crino (School of Psychology)
    Funding: Australian Psychology Association (NSW Branch)

    This project focuses on developing and validating an innovative approach to assessing the clinical competence of Master students in clinical psychology.  Data collection has been completed and analysis is well under way.

    Distress in medical students

    Project Title: Recognition and reponse to distress in medical student peers
    Research Team: Catherine Leahy (PhD student, University of Adelaide), Ray Peterson (University of Queensland), Ian Wilson, Anne Tonkin (UofA), Deborah Turnbull (UofA), Jonathan Newbury (UofA)
    Funding: beyondblue

    This project focuses on a medical student’s ability to recognise distress in peers and how to respond to the distress.  The project is now completed.  One paper has been published and the work has been continued in an OLT grant.

    Leahy C, Peterson R, Wilson I, Newbury J, Tonkin A, Turnbull D.  Distress Levels and Self-Reported Treatment Rates for Medicine, Law, Psychology and Mechanical Engineering Tertiary Students: A cross-sectional study.  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 2010; 44:608 - 615

    Online learning

    Project Title: Development of high quality online learning packages for medical education
    Research Team: James Dalziel (Macquarie University), Bronwen Dalziel, Development teams (School of Medicine) et al.
    Funding: Australian Learning & Teaching Council

    The school is currently developing on-line learning packages for Years 3 to 5 of the course. The project is designed to develop these to the point where they are of exceptional quality.

    Learning approaches

    Project Title: Learning approaches across health and science courses (LASAC)
    Research Team: Yenna Salamonson, Ragbir Bhathal, Cheang Khoo, Jane Koch, Ian Wilson, Roslyn Weaver
    Funding: Education Research Grants in Health & Science (ERGHS)

    This project aims to investigate the learning approaches and stress levels of students and their relationship to academic performance across five selected health and science units. A qualitative substudy will investigate this topic in more depth.

    Wilson I, Weaver R, Salamonson Y.  Changes in learning approaches in first year medical students. Focus on Health Professional Education  2011; 13(2): 65-72

    Cultural diversity

    Project Title: Universal diverse orientation (UDO) of health sciences and business students
    Research Team: Yenna Salamonson, Roslyn Weaver, Kath Peters, Stephen Teo, Ian Wilson, Sharon Andrew, Debra Jackson, Andrea Bialocerkowski, Jane Koch

    The UDO study investigates professional identity, cultural diversity, and comfort with differences across health sciences and business courses at UWS.

    Weaver R, Peters K, Koch J, Wilson I.  “Part of the team”: Professional identity and social exclusivity in medical students.  Medical Education 2011; 45(12): 1220-1229

    Medicine and popular culture

    Project Title: Medical role models in popular culture
    Researchers: Roslyn Weaver, Ian Wilson
    Funding: UWS Research Seed Grant Scheme

    This study explores images of medicine and the medical profession in popular culture, medical students' attitudes to fictional medical role models, and students' professional identity.  One paper has been published and a second is under review.

    Weaver R, Wilson I.  Australian medical students, perceptions of professionalism and ethics in medical television programs.  BMC Medical Education  2011, 11:50 (29 July 2011)

    Professional identity development in nursing and medical students

    Project Title: Professional identity development in nursing and medical students.
    Researchers: Leanne Cowin (School of Nursing and Midwifery), Ian Wilson, Maree Johnson (SoNM)
    Funding: Unfunded

    This study explores the measurement of professional identity and how it develops in nursing and medical students.  It forms the basis of an application to ARC for a major study.  A further paper is in preparation.

    1. Johnson M, Cowin LS, Wilson I, Young H. Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments and future research challenges. International Nursing Review. 2012;59(4):562-9.
    2. Cowin LS, Johnson M, Wilson I, Borgese K. The psychometric properties of five Professional Identity measures in a sample of nursing students. Nurse Education Today. Aug 2012 [doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2012.07.008]. (0)
    3. Griffin B, Harding D, Wilson I, Yeomans N.  Does practice make perfect? The effect of coaching and retesting on selection tests used for admission to an Australian medical school.  Medical Journal of Australia, 2008; 189 (5): 270 - 273