Interrelationship between Professional and Education Practice

An academic department of education serving the entire university and a strategic choice by the Faculty of Medicine to support educational innovation through education research are the historical cornerstones of the education research program of the University of Maastricht. Over the years, the department’s initial exclusive research focus on the evaluation of problem-based learning has widened to include theory-based applied research covering the broad domain of education. The program focuses on themes: the learning of students and teachers, characteristics of powerful learning environments, and assessment and evaluation of learning and teaching. Although modest in terms of resources, the program is firmly anchored within the Faculty’s organizational structure. Educational relevance and professional alignment are the most prominent determinants of the success of the program. These features sustain the institutional mission of educational excellence as well as the high ranking of the Faculty of Medicine’s medical training program among the training programs of the Netherlands’ medical schools. A break in this self-perpetuating mechanism—due either to internal politics or to staffing problems—forms the main risk factor for the continuation of the department. Acad Med. 2004;79:990–996. In 1974, the Maastricht Faculty of Medicine was founded as the first faculty of a new university. The mission of this new university explicitly included educational innovation. A group of pioneers had discovered problem-based learning (PBL) as an attractive instructional method and adopted it from McMaster University. Although logical with hindsight, in those days it was quite revolutionary to include educationalists among the first group of trailblazers who shaped the university’s mission. During the discussions in which the organizational structure of the university was established, the educationalists vigorously championed an independent academic status for education and education research. The idea was to achieve this ideal by setting up a department dedicated to education and education research (including but not limited to medical education research). After many sessions in which the desirability of an educational unit that would provide more than educational service and support was hotly debated, the educationalists saw their wish fulfilled in 1977 when full academic status was granted to a department of education, now called the Department of Educational Development and Research. The decision to establish a department solely Dr. van der Vleuten is professor and chair; Dr. Dolmans is associate professor; Dr. de Grave is senior lecturer; Dr. van Luijk is senior lecturer; Dr. Muijtjens is senior lecturer; Dr. Schuwirth is associate professor; and Dr. Wolfhagen is associate professor, Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, the Netherlands. Dr. Scherpbier is professor and director, Institute for Medical Education, at the same institution. Correspondence should be addressed to Prof. Dr. Cees P.M. van der Vleuten, Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands; telephone: 31 43 3885725/3885726; fax: 31 43 3885779; e-mail: [email protected] . A C A D E M I C M E D I C I N E , V O L . 7 9 , N O . 1 0 / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 990 dedicated to educational matters was the cornerstone of education research in Maastricht. The foundation for research was strengthened by the decision to incorporate education research among the limited number of the core research themes of the medical faculty. Resources—albeit on a modest scale—were specifically allocated for education research. And, even more importantly, research on education gained formal recognition as a priority domain within the Faculty of Medicine. In 1982, the university granted the mandate for the research program on education. Since 1977, several other faculties have been established. All the faculties of the University of Maastricht adopted PBL as their main instructional method. Currently, the University of Maastricht is a midsize Dutch university with seven faculties and approximately 12,000 students and 3,000 employees. The Faculty of Medicine has a student intake of 340 students per year, who enroll in a six-year undergraduate medical program. Educational innovation continues to be at the heart of the university’s mission. (For more information about the university, see www.unimaas.nl .) The two organizational prerequisites—academic status for educationalists and a recognized research program—have been crucial factors in shaping education research in Maastricht. However, other factors have probably been even more decisive in its survival and success. In this case study, we will attempt to shed more light on those factors. We will do so by first describing the goals and the contents of the education research program and then reflect on critical success factors, risk factors, and challenges for the future. We will limit this case study to the research activities associated with the Faculty of Medicine.