Outcome based education enacted: teachers’ tensions in balancing between student learning and bureaucracy

This paper reports on how teachers within health sciences education translate outcome-based education (OBE) into practice when they design courses. The study is an empirical contribution to the debate about outcome- and competency-based approaches in health sciences education. A qualitative method w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice 2014-12, Vol.19 (5), p.629-643
Main Authors: Barman, Linda, Silén, Charlotte, Bolander Laksov, Klara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Administrative Organization
Competence
Competency Based Teacher Education
Conflict
Content Analysis
Course Content
Curriculum
Curriculum Design
Education
education policy
Education, Professional - methods
Education, Professional - organization & administration
Educational Change
Educational Measurement - methods
Health Sciences
Humans
Instructional design
Interviews
Learning
Medical Education
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Outcome Based Education
Performance Factors
Praxis
Pretests Posttests
Professional Competence
Program Implementation
Qualitative Research
Teacher Developed Materials
Teacher Surveys
Teaching
Teaching - methods
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Summary:This paper reports on how teachers within health sciences education translate outcome-based education (OBE) into practice when they design courses. The study is an empirical contribution to the debate about outcome- and competency-based approaches in health sciences education. A qualitative method was used to study how teachers from 14 different study programmes designed courses before and after OBE was implemented. Using an interpretative approach, analysis of documents and interviews was carried out. The findings show that teachers enacted OBE either to design for more competency-oriented teaching–learning, or to further detail knowledge and thus move towards reductionism. Teachers mainly understood the outcome-based framework as useful to support students’ learning, although the demand for accountability created tension and became a bureaucratic hindrance to design for development of professional competence. The paper shows variations of how teachers enacted the same outcome-based framework for instructional design. These differences can add a richer understanding of how outcome- or competency-based approaches relate to teaching–learning at a course level.
ISSN:1382-4996
1573-1677
1573-1677
DOI:10.1007/s10459-013-9491-3