Scoping reviews in health professions education: challenges, considerations and lessons learned about epistemology and m
- PDF / 646,062 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 20 Downloads / 253 Views
Scoping reviews in health professions education: challenges, considerations and lessons learned about epistemology and methodology Aliki Thomas1,2,3 · Stuart Lubarsky3,4 · Lara Varpio5 · Steven J. Durning5 · Meredith E. Young3,6 Received: 19 March 2019 / Accepted: 14 October 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Scoping reviews are increasingly used in health professions education to synthesize research and scholarship, and to report on the depth and breadth of the literature on a given topic. In this Perspective, we argue that the philosophical stance scholars adopt during the execution of a scoping review, including the meaning they attribute to fundamental concepts such as knowledge and evidence, influences how they gather, analyze, and interpret information obtained from a heterogeneous body of literature. We highlight the principles informing scoping reviews and outline how epistemology—the aspect of philosophy that “deals with questions involving the nature of knowledge, the justification of beliefs, and rationality”—should guide methodological considerations, toward the aim of ensuring the production of a high-quality review with defensible and appropriate conclusions. To contextualize our claims, we illustrate some of the methodological challenges we have personally encountered while executing a scoping review on clinical reasoning and reflect on how these challenges could have been reconciled through a broader understanding of the methodology’s philosophical foundation. We conclude with a description of lessons we have learned that might usefully inform other scholars who are considering undertaking a scoping review in their own domains of inquiry.
Disclaimer The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense or other US Federal agencies. * Aliki Thomas [email protected] 1
School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, 3654 Sir William Osler, Room 45, Montreal, QC H3G 1Y5, Canada
2
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
3
Institute of Health Sciences Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
4
Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Montreal, QC, Canada
5
Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA
6
Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
A. Thomas et al.
Keywords Challenges · Epistemology · Methodology · Methods · Scoping · Reviews
Introduction Because research in health professions education (HPE) has steadily advanced over the last 20 years (Doja et al. 2014), HPE scholars are increasingly exploring ways to review and synthesize this growing body of evidence. Given the range of review methodologies available, HPE scholars must make judicious and defensible decisions about which review type is most appropriate to address their research question. Each kind of knowledge synthesis has a unique purpose and is able to answ
Data Loading...
