The design, implementation and testing of a technology enhanced learning evaluation tool for healthcare professional education programmes:: A Realist Evaluation Study
The term technology enhanced learning (TEL) is used within the literature and this study to describe a broad field of digital technologies used to support and mediate educational activities. This includes educational activities that are totally digitally mediated and those that are blended with more traditional in person or face to face educational approaches.Technology-enhanced learning (TEL) programmes are increasingly seen as the way in which education for health care professional education can be enhanced and in some cases transformed, giving access to effective ongoing learning and training even where time or geographical barriers exist. With the increasing emphasis on this mode of educational support for health care practitioners, it is vital that we can effectively evaluate and measure impact in real life settings to ensure that TEL for healthcare professional education programmes are effective and fit for purpose.This study has identified a paucity of good quality evidence in the literature and no practical standard tools to assist with the evaluation of TEL within healthcare professional education .With this comes the potential for TEL healthcare education programmes for practitioners to continue to: fail to achieve the uptake at scale that policy and service requires; fail to deliver the educational quality and impact required to support safe and effective healthcare practice; be too readily discarded when considered to succeed or fail in totality rather than be refined and improved; fail to be re-useable and transferred across organisations, sectors and professional groups; fail to present a reasonable return on financial and resource investment for funding and commissioning organisations and so fail to achieve the full potential of TEL for enhancement or transformation of healthcare professional education at all levels. These limitations highlighted the need to develop, implement and test a comprehensive and methodologically sound evaluation tool for technology enhanced learning for healthcare professional (TELHCP) education programmes.
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