In her excellent editorial, Elizabeth E. Hare discusses e-learning for psychiatrists. Reference Hare1 We wish to highlight another e-learning resource for psychiatrists, of which the readership may not be aware.
Mayes et al suggest that ‘there are really no models of e-learning per se – only e-enhancements of models of learning’. Reference Mayes and de Freitas2 So as with all learning, e-learning needs to be based on good pedagogical principles, with good instructional design as a foundation.
Further, Hattie conducted a meta-analysis where he examined the relative effectiveness of various educational factors on student achievement. Reference Hattie3 The top seven in terms of effect size were: reinforcement (1.13), student's prior cognitive ability (1.00), instructional quality (1.04), direct instruction (0.82), remediation/feedback (0.65), student's disposition to learn (0.61) and class environment (0.56).
It is possible to see how e-learning may enhance ‘reinforcement’ and ‘student's disposition to learn’. Video e-learning represents another form of e-learning, which also addresses the ‘direct instruction’ and ‘class environment’ interventions – it may be easier to learn from a ‘live’ teacher talking with credibility and passion directly to the student in a classroom, rather than reading the same words from written text. By way of example, the Video Journal of Psychiatry is a sponsored online service providing classroom-like lectures on MRCPsych curricula and continuing professional development topics to Irish psychiatrists (www.vjpsych.ie).
Cook et al have shown that internet-based learning is beneficial to students and is probably as effective as the traditional instructional methods. Reference Cook, Levinson, Garside, Dupras, Erwin and Montori4 What is needed now is more research, comparing the efficacy of the various internet-based interventions.
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