Difference of learning effectiveness between face-to-face and online Interprofessional Education (IPE) Seminars II

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Niigata University of Health and Welfare to switch from face-to-face seminars to online seminars for their interprofessional education (IPE) courses. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of this change in course format on learning effectiveness, and to discuss problems noted with the course evaluation. The Japanese version of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning (RIPLS), a 19-item questionnaire assessing readiness for interprofessional education, was used to measure the above impact. Comparing the year of face-to-face seminars with the year of online seminars, we found no significant difference in the number of items that showed a significant change in student evaluations between pre- and post-seminar. However, items that showed no significant pre/post difference - whether face-to-face or online - tended to emphasize practical problem-solving skills within students’ own majors and a negative view of students’ own professional independence, positioning them in a co-medical supporting role for physicians. Factor analysis did not reveal any factors such as collaboration across specialties or focus on issues outside of students’ own specialties. Therefore, in the year of the online seminars, we added two new questions to evaluate the effect of cooperative learning on problem-solving beyond students’ own specialties and found a significant increase after the seminars. These findings suggest that the Japanese version of RIPLS may be insufficient for evaluating IPE, and that we need to continue asking the same questions and improve the scale, considering the merits of both face-to-face and online seminars.