Beyond the Program, Beyond the Individual: Impact of a University Medical Teacher Development Program on Practice

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of a University Teacher Development (UTD) Program. It explores how a cohort of medical educators who completed a Master of Medical Education degree are facilitating change in their own workplaces several years after graduating. The experiences of these participants elicits a new meaning of program impact as a longer-term, negotiated, socially situated phenomenon of shifts in the teaching and learning practices of workgroups and organisations. In this sense, UTD program impact occurs both beyond the individual and beyond the program. UTD programs are now commonplace in Australia. With the increasing regulation of teaching quality in higher education, governments and universities are seeking indicators of quality such as the number of staff who complete UTD programs and evidence that these programs ‘work’, to justify the time and resources allocated to their continuation. This study analyses participants’ experiences of program impact one to three years after completing a UTD program. This analysis identified that impact, as a longer-term phenomenon, is best understood as being socially negotiated and contested and requiring interactions with students, with colleagues and with the profession. This suggests that understanding the impact of a UTD program requires investigation over time, not just at the point of graduation. It also requires an interpretation of longer-term impact through shifts in educational practice within organisations, not only changes in individual attitudes and approaches. This study advocates for a methodological approach in which a hermeneutic process is used to distil the essential elements of participants’ accounts and a practice theory lens to make sense of those elements. This approach facilitates engagement with the experiences of program participants to form a complex understanding of the impact of the program on them and on the organisations in which they operate.