Motivational factors which affect veterinarians' approaches to lifelong learning, from undergraduate to practitioner

N.B. The information below is authored by the mini-project applicants, not by staff of the subject centre. This text represents the views and opinions of the mini-project team only, not those of the subject centre or its affiliates.

Full list of project partners

Professor Stephen May
Mr. Kim Whittlestone

Background

With a new Veterinary Surgeons Act imminent, which is likely to make Continuing Professional Development (CPD) a statutory requirement, there is a need to investigate different motivating factors for veterinary surgeons’ uptake of continuing education. A better understanding of practitioners’ motivation is critical in promoting more effective strategies for lifelong learning at the undergraduate level. This study proposes that the extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors for engaging in CPD can be related to individuals’ learning orientations, developed at an earlier stage of their educational development i.e. as school pupils and later as undergraduates.

To aid the identification of different learning orientations, we propose to use a modified version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) questionnaire, developed by Entwistle and colleagues (Tait, Entwistle and others 1997). This is a quantitative tool that distinguishes between learners demonstrating a deep approach, versus a surface approach or strategic or apathetic approach. A cut-down version of this tool (similar to that proposed by Richardson (1990) that distinguishes deep from surface learners, based on Entwistle’s original Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI)) will be incorporated within a postal questionnaire to a sample of two thousand RCVS registered veterinary surgeons, which will also probe:
• practitioner’s views about – and motivation for – engaging in lifelong learning
• types of CPD activities undertaken
• reflection on undergraduate experiences
• reflection on primary and secondary education (5-18 years)

With regards to the sampling procedure, a cross-sectional approach will be taken, using stratified sampling to randomly select two thousand participants across four decades of graduation since 1967 (providing access to 40 years of graduates, comprising the majority of the workforce), including alumni from six of the seven UK veterinary schools. Proportional participant demographics will be matched to those identified in the recent RCVS workforce survey (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) 2006). We have consulted the RCVS about the proposed study, and are fortunate in that the professional body has agreed to provide us with register data in order to identify and contact survey participants.

Following the survey, we will take our findings to generate questions for a series of structured interviews with 50 practitioners. This sample will include 25 practitioners we have identified as successful lifelong learners i.e. who appear to be intrinsically motivated to engage in CPD and who demonstrate a deep learning approach. The other 25 practitioners will be those we have identified as exhibiting a surface approach to learning and lesser engagement in CPD, from which we would anticipate identifying some of the barriers to engaging in lifelong learning.

Proposed activities

• Drafting of questionnaire, ethical approval sought (June 2007)
• Piloting of questionnaire (July 2007)
• Refinement of questionnaire and distribution to practitioners (August – September 2007)
• Analysis of questionnaire findings using SPSS for closed responses and NVivo for open responses (October 2007)
• Mid-term report for MEDEV (November 2007)
• Interviews with 50 practitioners (November 2007 – January 2008)
• Analysis of interview data using NVivo (February 2008)
• Writing of report for MEDEV (March 2008)
• Writing of paper(s) for submission to relevant journal(s) (April – May 2008)

Proposed outcomes

Findings from the study will be reported in an article for the HEA-MEDEV newsletter, the mid-term and final project reports, and a paper for a scientific, peer-reviewed journal. The benefits to the wider community, including medicine, dentistry, and nursing, will be an increased understanding of motivational factors for – and barriers to – health professionals’ engagement in lifelong learning. Within veterinary medicine, all students at the host institution (approx. 1000) and at the other veterinary schools (2500+) will be affected as the findings will impact on undergraduate curriculum design, as a result of the reporting to the wider community of factors that may promote or inhibit independent and lifelong learning.

Proposed expertise

The applicant and co-applicants in this proposal will carry out this work under the auspices of the Lifelong Independent Veterinary Education (LIVE) Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CETL), and will deliver findings to all the veterinary schools in the UK and Ireland.

Ms. Vicki Dale is a Research Fellow in Lifelong Learning at the LIVE CETL. She is currently writing up a PhD in the field of veterinary education, undertaken at the University of Glasgow where she worked as an Educational Technologist for 13 years. A large component of her PhD study was a questionnaire mailed to all Glasgow veterinary graduates, to ascertain their perceptions on the usefulness of different educational methods and technologies as undergraduates, therefore she has experience in designing questionnaires and handling large quantities of data with a view to informing education policy. She has been the recipient of mini-project funding in recent years to investigate the potential of OSCEs for veterinary use, and the creation of reusable learning objects, the outcomes of which have been successfully delivered.

Professor Stephen May is Academic Director of the LIVE CETL, Professor of Equine Medicine and Surgery in the University of London, and Vice-Principal for Teaching at The Royal Veterinary College, University of London. He has over 20 years experience of the full spectrum of veterinary education from teaching communication skills to first year undergraduates to CPD programmes, in surgery and diagnostic imaging, for experienced equine practitioners. In 2003, he was awarded the Fellowship of the RCVS for meritorious contributions to learning.

Mr. Kim Whittlestone is a qualified veterinary surgeon with over 17 years experience in e-learning for veterinary and medical education. He joined the LIVE CETL in May 2006 as Senior Lecturer in Independent Learning. One of Kim’s research areas has been to investigate approaches to study taken by veterinary undergraduates across all five year groups using the ASSIST questionnaire. The preliminary findings from this research suggest that a significant proportion of the undergraduate population are adopting surface/strategic approaches to study and that this does not change throughout their time at veterinary school.

Expertise of grant holder and project team

The applicant and co-applicants in this proposal will carry out this work under the auspices of the Lifelong Independent Veterinary Education (LIVE) Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CETL), and will deliver findings to all the veterinary schools in the UK and Ireland.

Ms. Vicki Dale is a Research Fellow in Lifelong Learning at the LIVE CETL. She is currently writing up a PhD in the field of veterinary education, undertaken at the University of Glasgow where she worked as an Educational Technologist for 13 years. A large component of her PhD study was a questionnaire mailed to all Glasgow veterinary graduates, to ascertain their perceptions on the usefulness of different educational methods and technologies as undergraduates, therefore she has experience in designing questionnaires and handling large quantities of data with a view to informing education policy. She has been the recipient of mini-project funding in recent years to investigate the potential of OSCEs for veterinary use, and the creation of reusable learning objects, the outcomes of which have been successfully delivered.

Professor Stephen May is Academic Director of the LIVE CETL, Professor of Equine Medicine and Surgery in the University of London, and Vice-Principal for Teaching at The Royal Veterinary College, University of London. He has over 20 years experience of the full spectrum of veterinary education from teaching communication skills to first year undergraduates to CPD programmes, in surgery and diagnostic imaging, for experienced equine practitioners. In 2003, he was awarded the Fellowship of the RCVS for meritorious contributions to learning.

Mr. Kim Whittlestone is a qualified veterinary surgeon with over 17 years experience in e-learning for veterinary and medical education. He joined the LIVE CETL in May 2006 as Senior Lecturer in Independent Learning. One of Kim’s research areas has been to investigate approaches to study taken by veterinary undergraduates across all five year groups using the ASSIST questionnaire. The preliminary findings from this research suggest that a significant proportion of the undergraduate population are adopting surface/strategic approaches to study and that this does not change throughout their time at veterinary school.

Similar work

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons published the results of a workforce survey in 2006 which included a section on the uptake of CPD and methods most commonly used. Although this was at a necessarily superficial level, given the broad remit of the study, it provides a basis from which to explore engagement in lifelong learning within the profession. The RCVS has also conducted two surveys specifically on the uptake of CPD, in 2004 and 2005, which provide a context for this study.

There has been some published work on motivating factors for engaging in continuing veterinary medical education (Moore, Klingborg and others 2000), which have clearly focused on the graduate experience, without extrapolating this back to factors that influence motivation at the undergraduate level. Literature is also available documenting studies that have examined motivation to participate in continuing education in other health professions such as nursing (Mackereth 1989; Dowswell, Hewison and others 1998) and medicine (Kelly and Murray 1996; Miller, Bligh and others 1998; Chambers, Ferguson and others 2000), with which we can draw comparisons.

Although work has been done linking medical students’ motivation for learning at an undergraduate level to the outcomes of a learning style inventory (Newble and Entwistle 1986; Sobral 2004), we are not aware of any other studies that specifically link motivation to participate in lifelong learning with learning orientations developed at the undergraduate level in veterinary medicine. In medicine, Vu and Galofre (1983) predicted that medical students were unlikely to become successful lifelong learners, on the basis of the results of administering a learning style inventory to undergraduate medical students. Our proposed study would build on existing work in this area in medicine and occupy a niche as yet relatively unexplored in veterinary education.

We are aware of one other HEA past-funded project that has used a learning style inventory with medical students (Haley and Smith, 'An investigation into the learning styles of University of Southampton medical School entrants and outcomes of first year primary BM exams’, http://www.medev.ac.uk/resources/funded_projects/show_project?reference_number=373, a project which used the Honey and Mumford questionnaire to assess the learning styles of medical students at the entry to the course and at the end of the first year) and where appropriate we will liaise with suggested contacts to share ideas and expertise. We have also identified the following project of potential relevance: Action Learning for Lifelong Professional Development (http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/584.htm), and will contact the project leader as appropriate.

References
Chambers, W. A., K. Ferguson and G. J. Prescott (2000). 'Continuing medical education by anaesthetists in Scotland: activities, motivation and barriers.' Anaesthesia 55(12): 1192-1197.
Dowswell, T., J. Hewison and M. Hinds (1998). 'Motivational forces affecting participation in post-registration degree courses and effects on home and work life: a qualitative study.' Journal of Advanced Nursing 28(6): 1326-1333.
Kelly, M. H. and T. S. Murray (1996). 'Motivation of general practitioners attending postgraduate education.' British Journal of General Practice 46: 353-356.
Mackereth, P. (1989). 'An Investigation of the Developmental Influences on Nurses Motivation for Their Continuing-Education.' Journal of Advanced Nursing 14(9): 776-787.
Miller, J., J. Bligh, I. Stanley and A. Al Shehri (1998). 'Motivation and continuation of professional development.' British Journal of General Practice 48(432): 1429-1432.
Moore, D. A., D. J. Klingborg, J. S. Brenner and A. A. Gotz (2000). 'Motivations for and barriers to engaging in continuing veterinary medical education.' Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 217(7): 1001-1006.
Newble, D. I. and N. J. Entwistle (1986). 'Learning Styles and Approaches - Implications for Medical- Education.' Medical Education 20(3): 162-175.
Richardson, J. T. E. (1990). 'Reliability and Replicability of the Approaches to Studying Questionnaire.' Studies in Higher Education 15(2): 155-168.
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) (2006). 'The UK Veterinary Profession in 2006: The findings of a Survey of the Profession Conducted by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.'
Sobral, D. T. (2004). What kind of motivation drives medical students' learning quests? 38: 950-957.
Tait, H., N. J. Entwistle and V. McCune (1997). ASSIST: a reconceptualisation of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. Improving Student Learning: Improving Students as Learners. C. Rust. Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development: 262-271.
Vu, N. V. and A. Galofre (1983). 'How medical students learn.' Journal of Medical Education 58(8): 601-10.

Contact details

Amount awarded: 4,432

Subject centre project contact: Gillian Brown

Reports and resources

Reports and articles will appear here once avaliable