ANÁLISIS DE LA CRITICALIDAD AUTOORGANIZADA.

Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants. This type of sampling, which involved choosing participants who were available and accessible at the time (Cohen et al., 2007), was selected because students in the clinical years were scattered across various clinical sites and, depending on their current workload and priorities, gaining access to them would have been problematic. The recruitment process took place via an email invitation sent by a professional staff member at Monash University to students in all four year levels of the graduate-entry MBBS program. The email was drafted by the researcher and was entitled ‘Test your anatomy knowledge and help contribute to new research’. In the email, students were advised of the title of the research and the makeup of the research team, and they were notified that the study consisted of two phases: a learning anatomy survey and a formative anatomy

assessment task to be delivered online in late 2014, with a potential invitation for an interview in early 2015. Further, a flyer was embedded in the email (see Appendix D) that gave students non-financial incentives to participate, such as an opportunity to revise for examinations and to test their knowledge, and an opportunity to understand the strengths and weaknesses in their anatomy knowledge.

Students who wanted to participate in the research were asked to contact the main researcher for further information via a separate email address

([email protected]) that was dedicated specifically to the project. The recruitment process commenced in September 2014, approximately eight weeks prior to the scheduled Phase One data collection. The assessment task in Phase One was due to take place a few weeks prior to the students’ summative written examinations; therefore, the reason for recruiting later in the year was to keep students motivated and committed to participation. Consequently, three emails were sent to all

participants over a span of four weeks to maximise recruitment. During recruitment, there was an influx in participant numbers in the Year A and Year C categories, with approximately 50% of each cohort expressing an interest in the research. This was expected, because the students in these cohorts were to be engaged shortly thereafter in high-stakes summative written assessments—part of which would test the anatomy knowledge covered in Year A. Unfortunately, only 17% of the Year B cohorts and 8% of the Year D cohorts registered their interest. Although there are integrated

assessments in Year B and Year D that would require anatomical knowledge, these students do not sit a formal anatomy assessment or receive an anatomy score from the integrated assessments during this period; hence, it could be argued that there was little incentive for them to participate. Therefore, a separate email highlighting the

opportunity to participate in the research was sent to each of the Year B and Year D students by the clinical site administrators to attempt to increase recruitment. The resulting influx of 18 additional students from the Year B cohort (22%) and 14

additional students from Year D cohort (16%) was added to the pool of participants for this study.

Overall, 144 students responded to the call for participants. After the initial expressions of interest had been received, the researcher using the research email address ([email protected]) provided students with further information on the research via a participant information form and a participant consent form that were sent via email. Students were advised that if they wanted to participate after having read the information form, they should email their signed consent form and student ID to be formally accepted into the research study. The method of receiving consent forms via email was selected to facilitate the ease with which consent could be obtained from students scattered across Victoria and overseas.

There were 140 students who provided a signed consent form to participate in both phases of the research. Four students did not consent or respond to further emails; hence, they were omitted from the study. Two of these students were overseas at the time. Although consent was obtained for participation in Phases One and Two of the research, participants were made aware that only a selected few would be invited to participate in Phase Two.

5.4.1 Participant Selection for Phase Two

The purpose of Phase Two was to allow the research team to gain further insights into the findings obtained through the quantitative data analysis. The selection process for the qualitative phase could only take place once all participants had

completed the online anatomy questionnaire and assessment.

Once the quantitative data were analysed, the research team employed a

purposive sampling technique to guide the development and refinement of Phase Two— the qualitative strand (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011, p. 84.).

To explore the learning, forgetting and retention of anatomy knowledge by participants, the research team identified the top and bottom performers from each year level, and from as many different backgrounds as possible—i.e., previous learning in anatomy (from a prior degree) in a professional course or a biomedical science course, little to no anatomy in a biological science or other science course and no anatomy exposure at all in a non-science course (Cohen et al., 2007). Given the aim of the qualitative phase, it was imperative to select participants who engaged sufficiently with the online learning and assessment process. Consequently, a criterion for exclusion of participants in Phase Two was included, with the ‘time taken to complete the test’ as the key variable. The rationale for this was that a short response time could be associated with a lack of effort or engagement on the participant’s behalf (although this could also

be seen as a surrogate for poor performance). Two students were excluded on the basis of this criteria. Detailed information regarding this has been presented in section 6.1.

The analysis of the quantitative data guided the recruitment of the participants for Phase Two. To fulfil the final selection process, the research team decided on three criteria that participants had to meet to be invited for an interview: performance, educational background and student engagement on the anatomy assessment task. Student performance was judged using overall scores on the anatomy assessment, while background information was obtained through the survey in part one of the quantitative phase—the learning questionnaire. Student engagement was factored in using student response time (i.e., the time taken to complete the test), which was recorded as part of the online tool. The chosen participants had to have spent an average of 25–30 minutes or more on the anatomy assessment (the mean time for completion, as calculated for their cohort).

Subsequently, four participants from each year level (two top performers and two bottom performers) were chosen for this phase, with a total of 16 participants across the four cohorts. An email invitation was sent out to these 16 individuals to invite them to participate in Phase Two of the research, which was to consist of one 60–90-minute semi-structured interview.

Of the 16 invitations that were emailed, 12 participants accepted, and a private face-to-face or phone conversation was scheduled. The top performers in all four cohorts accepted the invitation. While they represented the five different educational backgrounds, it was not possible to meet this criterion with the bottom performers, as both students in this category in Year D declined to participate as well as one student in Year A and one in Year C failed to respond, despite many efforts to contact them. In this instance, the next students identified as meeting the three criteria were selected and

invited to participate in an interview. However, it became very challenging to source sufficient participants; many were unable to take part because of personal and

professional commitments at the time. Therefore, the prior educational background of the bottom performers represented those who came from a biological science, other science and no science degree. Ultimately, 13 interviews were scheduled, as outlined in Table 5.3.

Table 5.3

Participant Selection for Qualitative Strand