Twelve tips for developing effective marking schemes for constructed-response examination questions

The future of health professions education: Emerging trends in the United States.

Science education for tomorrow’s health professionals

Context and setting In Egypt, health professions education (HPE) is practised by health professionals who have no formal training in education. Faculty members are the cornerstone of the educational process. To enhance HPE, the Egyptian National Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency and the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office of the World Health Organization (EMRO-WHO) recommended that an urgent plan should be developed for training HPE faculty staff in medical education. Why the idea was necessary In order to access training in medical education, the only option for potential trainees was to leave their employment for expensive on-site educational programmes offered either regionally or abroad. To make an impact on HPE in Egypt, it was critical to develop more affordable and accessible opportunities for educating larger numbers of faculty in HPE. What was done The newly established Medical Education Department in the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, developed a distance learning diploma in HPE that covers all the medical education domains. This programme is sponsored by the WHO and targets a wide range of faculty staff in all HPE institutions in Egypt, including those in faculties of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy and speech therapy. Faculty recruited to teach in this diploma programme are qualified and have substantial experience in medical education. Twenty, including three from other institutions in Egypt, have Masters degrees in medical education from a number of internationally recognised medical schools. The diploma is composed of seven modules, each taught in 6-week blocks. Topics include curriculum development, student assessment, teaching and learning skills, programme evaluation, and quality assurance in HPE. The programme also addresses and encourages interprofessional learning. The programme is run through a dedicated website that includes a Blackboard e-learning space. The diploma programme was announced through newspaper advertisements, mass e-mails, flyers and brochures. This resulted in a rush of applications from a number of medical, dental, pharmacy and nursing schools in Egypt. A total of 38 candidates from 15 different institutions were selected for the first cohort of entrants and other applications were postponed to subsequent years. Evaluation of results and impact When the planning of the seven modules had been completed, a number of regional, national and international experts in medical education validated the diploma curriculum. The Medical Sector of the Supreme Council of Universities has endorsed the diploma course and recognised its certificate as representative of the only formal course in medical education in Egypt that is taught through distance learning. The 5-year goal of the programme is to train 5% of HPE faculty across the country. The diploma curriculum is designed to ensure that the alumni of this programme will educate other educators in their institutions and make a real impact on HPE in Egypt.

Tourism as one of the promising branches of economy demands competent, active and highly qualified specialists who are capable of professional self-determination generating and implementing their own plans in the relevant market conditions as well as in the state of crisis. The training of future tourism specialists is associated with the need to form professional and personal competence, which involves the development of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, a vision of their professional behaviour in various situations of interpersonal interaction. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the essence of a competent approach in preparing tourism specialists to work in crisis conditions. The tasks of this work were to study scientific views on the issue of training tourism specialists to work in crisis conditions, to determine the main requirements for specialists in the tourism sector. To solve the problems of research, a set of methods was used: theoretical analysis and synthesis of ideas, results, theoretical statements disclosed in the scientific and pedagogical literature; summarizing and systematizing the results of existing studies on this issue. At the stage of development of the socio-cultural sphere, the tourism business needs personnel who are ready to organize activities in the conditions of crisis camps. Stakeholders and applicants seeking to expand the range of competitive opportunities in acquiring knowledge and skills are interested in implementing an educational program for training tourism specialists who are able to work in new socio-cultural conditions. The article generalizes views of scientists with respect to the interpretation of “competence approach” notion. Basic information on future tourism specialists training (taking into consideration all the directions of strategic development and global changes in the tourism market) is presented. The training issues are connected with the key problems of improving the tourism development management system, ensuring the competitiveness of tourism products and service in the implementation of national projects. It is determined that the main methodological requirement to future tourism specialists’ professional training is the updating of forms and content of practical components. Some of the methods of the educational process intensification that guarantee the effectiveness of theoretical and practical training are disclosed. Based on a thorough analysis of researches on this problem, a comprehensive definition of future tourism specialists’ professional training was defined, taking into account their readiness to operate in crisis situations. Professional competence in the context of the study is defined as an integrative quality, property, or dynamic state of a future specialist that ensures physical, psychological, professional, and personal compliance with needs, qualification standards, and requirements for work in the state of crisis. The set of competences such as general scientific, professionally qualified, social, individual and instrumental competence are relevant components of the professional competence of a tourism specialist, who is ready to operate in state of crisis. The introduction of academic discipline “Principles of anti-crisis management in tourism industry” that is aimed at the development and improvement of professional and personal tourism specialists’ qualities that are necessary to be effective in crisis situations was proposed.

The effectiveness of cultural competency education in improving health practitioner proficiency and addressing health inequities for minoritised patient groups is uncertain. Identification of institutional factors that shape or constrain development of indigenous health curricula may provide insights into the impact of these factors on the broader cultural competency curricula. We undertook a systematic review using actor-network theory to inform our interpretive synthesis of studies that reported indigenous health curricula evaluated within medical, nursing and allied health education. We searched the MEDLINE, OVID Nursing, Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), PsycINFO, EMBASE, Web of Science and PubMed databases to December 2017 using exploded MeSH terms 'indigenous' and 'medical education' and 'educational professional' and 'health professional education'. We included studies involving undergraduate or postgraduate medical, nursing or allied health students or practitioners. Studies were eligible if they documented indigenous health learning outcomes, pedagogical practices and student evaluations. Twenty-three studies were eligible for the review. In an interpretive synthesis informed by actor-network theory, three themes emerged from the data: indigenous health as an emerging curriculum (drivers of institutional change, increasing indigenous capacity and leadership, and addressing deficit discourse); institutional resource allocation to indigenous health curricula (placement within the core curriculum, time allocation, and resources constraining pedagogy), and impact of the curriculum on learners (acceptability of the curriculum, learner knowledge, and learner behaviour). Systemic barriers acting on and within educational networks have limited the developmental capacity of indigenous health curricula, supported and sustained hidden curricula, and led to insufficient institutional investment to support a comprehensive curriculum. Future research in health professional education should explore these political and network intermediaries acting on cultural competence curricula and how they can be overcome to achieve cultural competency learning outcomes.

In 2024, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Clinical Teacher (TCT). Established in 2004 by the Association of the Study of Medical Education (ASME)1 and Wiley,2 and first edited by Professor John Bligh, TCT was designed as a platform to explore 'the practical issues clinical teachers face in their day to day work'.3 Fast-forward, and this aim has certainly stood the test of time. The lay of the land in clinical education continues to change as the needs of adult learners shift and health care delivery evolves, bringing many new challenges and exciting opportunities. Over the past 20 years, the health professions education field has changed immeasurably across the world with the ever-increasing numbers of university programmes, education roles and service learning placements. Technological shifts, regulatory reforms and changing patient demographic needs have also revisioned the pedagogic approaches which shape our field. Across 2020 and 2021, editors Professor Jill Thistlethwaite and Dr Aileen Barrett navigated the journal through the Covid-19 pandemic, where clinical teaching rapidly adapted to meet the needs of social distancing requirements in a changing health workforce, fostering innovation. Although online learning was already well accepted across the health professions as a means to increase knowledge,4 its effectiveness in skills development had been less explored. As co-editors, we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to look back at what has been co-created over time. Many of the subject areas published in the first volume remain topical. For example, 'Teaching Anatomy without cadavers'5 remains a contemporary issue within the modern medical curricula. Once a long-held method of learning in anatomy, whole-body dissection has largely been replaced by cost and time-efficient teaching methods but with little agreement on what works best.6 In the first volume of TCT, problem-based learning (PBL) was discussed as a relatively new form of student learning.7 Although PBL remains popular, still present in many medical schools, a new contender is team-based learning (TBL). Having gained popularity across the health professions, TBL is seen as a resource efficient strategy among large student cohorts to foster knowledge recall, small group collaboration, large group discussions and feedback.8-10 Interprofessional Education (IPE) gained much attention over the years,11-14 and both TBL and IPE have emerged as important student-centred pedagogical approaches to prepare health professional students for practice, where a collaborative team environment for patient care is essential. TCT has a long history of supporting researchers, nurturing educational leaders and the development of educators through various activities overseen by former editors. Those who have served as TCT editorsinclude the following: John Bligh (volumes 1–2), John Spencer (volumes 3–6), Steve Trumble (volumes 8–10), Jill Thistlethwaite (volumes 11–17) and Aileen Barrett (volumes 18–20). We invited those who have gone before us to reflect on the journal's achievements, challenges, and future direction, and we look forward to sharing these commentaries across the 20th anniversary volume. Clinical education research is gaining momentum and recognition, with many different ways to get involved and take on leadership roles. Many of us enter this field serendipitously—it provides a meaningful way to connect with others across the university and healthcare sectors locally and internationally and across the health professions. TCT provides a platform to build social capital in clinical education research—an area of importance to students, trainees, educational designers, institutes and society. As a journal that encourages the advancement of early career researchers, we are committed to achieving impact through collaboration in research and scholarship. The future will bring many challenges to health professions education. Perhaps you have considered contributing toeducation research but are not sure how to get started. As health professional educators, we have a responsibility to improve the students' learning experience and share our innovations. We are relying on the expertise and creativity of the next generation to join our networks and lead the way, maintaining quality improvement in health professions education and sharing their ideas. To this end, we have built on the initiatives of previous editors. First introduced by Dr Aileen Barrett, the 'Early Career Scholarship papers section' offers postgraduate health professions education students the opportunity to showcase their research projects for publication as manuscripts. Further details on how to develop 'research' or 'innovation, implementation, improvement' articles for this section can be found online (https://asmepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/1743498x/homepage/forauthors.html). In collaboration with ASME, TCT offers awards that support the development of medical and health professions educators. Information can be found online (https://www.asme.org.uk/awards/). The anniversary award is a new initiative to support researchers in collaborative projects that develop and strengthen networks and lead to excellence in output. It enables individuals to gain further experience and understanding of the field of clinical teaching by visiting educational or healthcare institutions for their own professional and personal development. The prestigious new voices award aims to equip early career health professions educators and researchers with essential skills and knowledge required for peer review. It provides the opportunity to join a scholarly community of practice that encourages contemporary scholarly debates, critical analysis and refinement of academic writing skills. The impact award recognises the most downloaded paper published in TCT during the year. Thank you to the editors, editorial teams, authors and reviewers who have brought the journal to where it is today in its efforts to disseminate good practice in health professions education. Readers remain an important part of this community in driving good practice and influencing the journey of the journal. Across 2024–2025, we will offer a variety of opportunities to you to help celebrate the 20 year anniversary milestone. We want to encourage early career health professionals to engage with the journal and consider where the future will take us in the next 20 years. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Background:Health professions education (HPE) is an evolving discipline with a growing body of research. HPE research frequently utilizes surveys of learners and/or teachers to collect data and capture information about...

Background Research priority-setting exercises can guide resource allocation, strengthen methodological rigor, and align research efforts with educational and clinical needs in health professions education (HPE). However, existing exercises have not been appraised against recognized reporting standards, and no synthesis of their identified priorities has been attempted, limiting the ability to identify common threads across the HPE community. Aim To synthesize existing research priority-setting studies conducted in HPE by identifying, critically appraising, and mapping the current body of literature. Methods This systematic review followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines and the STORIES statement. PubMed, Scopus, and the Web of Science were searched for peer-reviewed studies reporting research priority-setting exercises in HPE published between January 2000 and February 2026. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, and full texts for eligibility. Data extraction was guided by the REPRISE guidelines. Studies were critically appraised using the checklist of nine common themes of good practice for research priority-setting exercises (9CTGP). A thematic analysis classified research priorities using the Medical Education Research Library framework. Protocol registration: PROSPERO CRD42023400999. Results Twenty-four studies met the inclusion criteria, most published in the last decade and predominantly focused on medical education within national or regional settings. No study used an existing framework for research priority setting, and none included plans for evaluating or updating their priorities. Fewer than one-third reported using a comprehensive approach (29.2%), and only 16.7% planned for implementation. Patients and trainees were underrepresented. The thematic analysis identified 14 themes and 46 subthemes. The most prevalent priorities across studies were curriculum and program evaluation (45.8%), development and evaluation of technology in HPE (45.8%), interprofessional education (41.7%), and faculty recruitment, motivation, and retention (37.5%). Conclusion Research priority-setting exercises in HPE are growing but show methodological inconsistencies, limited stakeholder diversity, and absence of evaluation plans. These findings highlight the need for specific guidance on conducting research prioritization in HPE and support efforts to develop a set of global research priorities built on common threads while respecting disciplinary and contextual specificities. Systematic review registration https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42023400999 , CRD42023400999.

The PubMed PICO (Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) tool from the National Library of Medicine provides health education professionals and students a method to conduct evidence-based practice literature searches to enhance the quality of new and existing health education interventions and programs. This review provides an overview on evidence-based practice, an overview of the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing Inc. competencies related to evidence-based practice. It introduces the PubMed PICO tool and provides suggestions on how health education professionals can use the tool more effectively. Through the use of the PubMed PICO tool, health education students and professionals can enhance their literature search strategies to help ensure a comprehensive and exhaustive literature review.

The more things stay the same, the more they change.

Student engagement is a complex multidimensional construct that has attained great interest in health professions education (HPE). Definition and conceptualization of student engagement is an important step that should drive the development of the instruments for its measurement. We have recently proposed a comprehensive framework for student engagement in HPE with a definition of engagement as student investment of time and energy in academic and non-academic experiences that include learning, teaching, research, governance, and community activities. The dimensions of student engagement in this framework included the cognitive, affective, behavioral, agentic, and socio-cultural. Guided by the student engagement framework, this non-systematic review aims to identify, critically appraise, and summarize the existing methods for measuring student engagement in HPE. Extrapolating from higher education literature, we attempted to link the theoretical perspectives of student engagement with the published methods of its measurement in HPE context. In addition, we have described the different methods of measuring student engagement including self-report surveys, real time measures, direct observation, interviews/focus groups, and the use of multiple instruments. The span of engagement dimensions measured by self-report surveys ranges from one to five dimensions. However, measurement of agentic and sociocultural dimensions of engagement in HPE is still limited and further research is required. We have also reflected on the existing methods of measuring engagement of students as active partners in HPE. The review also describes the advantages, limitations, and psychometric properties of each method for measuring student engagement. We ended the review with a guiding conclusion on how to develop and select an instrument for measuring student engagement in HPE. Finally, we addressed the gaps in the literature about measuring engagement of HPE students and future research plans.

Introduction The field historically known as medical education (MEDED) has increasingly adopted the label of health professions education (HPE), signaling expansion beyond medicine. This terminological shift is evident in the scope of journals and the names of conferences and degree programs, but it appears to have occurred without the formal consensus of the health professions it now claims to represent. As disciplinary language influences identity, legitimacy, and power, it is critical to examine whether this represents a transition to genuine inclusivity or a relabeling that maintains existing structures. Understanding how journals contribute to this discursive shift is essential for charting the field’s future identity. Methods We conducted a terminology analysis of four established journals that advertise an HPE focus (Academic Medicine, Medical Education, Medical Teacher, and Teaching and Learning in Medicine), from their inception through June 2025. Using Scopus, we searched titles, abstracts, and keywords for MEDED-only, HPE-only, and combined usage patterns. Results Our search pulled 48,846 non-unique articles, with MEDED continuing to dominate across the four journals. In 2024, there was a 15:1 ratio of MEDED-only to HPE-only publications (599 vs. 40 articles). While HPE terminology first appeared in 1973, its use remained relatively dormant until 2009–2010, with subsequent modest growth spikes in 2016–2017 and 2023–2024 that varied across journals. Discussion Despite the explicit inclusion of HPE in journals’ stated scope statements, HPE-focused publications remain a small minority. These findings highlight a disconnect between the aspirational inclusivity and the MEDED-centered reality of the journal’s publications. This tension signals limited interdisciplinary expansion and potentially a nominal rebranding of traditional MEDED hierarchies.

The article examines the problem of professional development of future officers of the penal system of the Russian Federation. The subject of the article is the personal and professional competence of penal system officers. The purpose of the article is to describe the pedagogical problems of the formation of personal and professional competence of the staff of the penal system at the stage of professional training. The methodological basis of the study was the analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature on the topic of the work, questionnaires, and generalization of pedagogical experience. As a result of the work carried out, the concept of personal and professional competence was analyzed, the role of subjective activity in its formation was shown, the necessity of targeted formation of pedagogical competence in future staff of the penal system was substantiated; approaches to the integrated assessment of the personal and professional competence of students were formulated. The solution of the above pedagogical problems will have a positive effect on the formation of the personal and professional competence of students, which ensures the effective further service activities of the FPS staff. Conclusions are drawn about the need for changes in the pedagogical process of training future staff of the penal system of the Russian Federation in the following areas: updating of the training technologies, enhancing the personal resources of students, organizing a system of independent work. Key words: competence-based approach, personal and professional competence, professional competence, professional subjectivity of an FPS officer.

Gender inequality is an ongoing issue within society at large and, more specifically, in medical and health professions education. Philosophical feminism employs philosophical methods to feminist topics and questions, and so holds the potential to illuminate ongoing issues within health professions education, such as gender bias, in new and critical ways within medical education. Philosophical feminist inquiry is motivated by desire for social justice and so, through scrutinising social, cultural, political, and economic phenomena within medical education using feminist thought, recommendations regarding confronting structural inequalities within medicine may be made. Philosophical feminism will also be considered more broadly, considering the ways in which gender intersects with issues of race, class, disability, sexuality and gender identity, and feminist theories of agency in relation to healthcare are explored. Finally, this chapter offers practical implications for considering how feminist theory manifests within contemporary healthcare curricula.

Objective and Aim The growing emphasis on accountability, quality assurance, and outcomes-based education has intensified the demand for robust and critically appraised evidence in medical education. While the principles of evidence-based medicine have substantially shaped clinical decision-making, their direct transfer to educational contexts has proven conceptually and methodologically challenging. Objective: This systematic review aims to synthesize the literature on evidence types, critical appraisal frameworks, and methodological quality standards in medical education research, and to present an integrative appraisal matrix suitable for educational decision-making. Methods A systematic review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines (7). Searches were performed in MEDLINE (PubMed), ERIC, Scopus, and Web of Science for studies published between 2000 and 2024. Included studies addressed evidence hierarchies, critical appraisal, research quality instruments, or methodological frameworks in medical or health professions education. Data were synthesized narratively due to methodological heterogeneity. Results Eighty-four studies met inclusion criteria. Evidence in medical education was categorized into quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, and design-based research. Traditional biomedical hierarchies were insufficient to capture educational relevance and contextual complexity. Appraisal tools such as BEME, MERSQI, CASP, and realist review frameworks were commonly cited, yet inconsistently applied. Conclusions Critical appraisal in medical education requires a pluralistic, theory-informed, and context-sensitive approach. The proposed appraisal matrix integrates methodological rigor, educational relevance, outcomes meaningfulness, and transferability to support informed educational practice. Keywords: Medical education research; Systematic review; Critical appraisal; Evidence hierarchy; Research methodology