Mentorship Program in Undergraduate Medical School - Research Proposal Example

RESEARCH PROPOSAL APPLYING MENTORSHIP PROGRAM IN UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOLS IN SAUDI ARABIA BY May 2014 Table of Contents 1.0.Introduction 2 2.0.Literature Review 4 3.0.Research Questions 8 4.0.Methodology 10 4.1.Sampling 10 5.0.Data collection 11 6.0.Data Analysis and Interpretational Methods used 12 7.0.Risk and Risk Mitigation 13 8.0.Privacy 14 9.0.Limitations and Advantages of Survey Questionnaire 14 10.0.Timeline 15 11.0.References 16 1.0. Introduction Many cases of drug abuse, universities dropouts have been on increase among Saudi Arabia undergraduate students (Rhodes and DuBois, 2006). This is becoming part of ever growing academic misguided students. More than 2000 students in various universities within Saudi Arabia dropped out of universities due to several reasons such as drug abuse, premarital pregnancies, poor choice of subjects and careers among others (Spencer, 2012). On the other hand, Universities such as Alfaisal University have reported cases of students taking their lives due to pressure of studies or failing to be given proper mentorship that guides their career paths. Given these statistics and general cost to the society, it is important that Saudi Arabia medical schools seek solutions to the problem. Studies such as Shadish et al. (2002) which started to notice incidences and trends of misguiding and university dropouts suggest that this has been a problem Saudi Arabia has been grappling with without proper strategy of alleviating it. Contemporary school have also described at-risk undergraduate students as those who are not experiencing success in universities, often minority, male, low achievers, with low self-esteem and such they are labeled as potential dropouts or are likely to commit suicide. One of the main reasons that have been cited for high dropouts among Saudi Arabian undergraduate students taking medicine according to recent statistics is the lack of mentoring programme that helps them cope with challenges in the university and life in general (Philip and Spratt, 2012). To be specific, Shadish et al. (2002) noted that a number of undergraduate students, particularly male students lack adequate social and psychological support from home or in their communities and when such is coupled with pressures of studies, their lives become at risk. Conversely, at university level students are faced with new challenges and one of such include but not limited to peer pressure which often has negative effects on their lives. According the 15 research-based characteristics of successful schools and effective undergraduate students, it was noted that these students needed advocacy to assist them as they develop academically and (Manza, 2003). Therefore mentoring programme among undergraduate students is important strategy that can help them cope with myriad of challenges facing them. The aim of this study is to evaluate effectiveness of applying mentorship program in undergraduate medical schools in Saudi Arabia. 2.0. Literature Review This research proposal recognizes paucity of information and literatures with regard to mentorship program in undergraduate medical schools and mentorship programmes among university students in Saudi Arabia in general. However, there are rampant cases of students with problematic behaviours and continued struggle for academic success in medical schools and such students are even at higher risk of dropping out of these schools. They thus need a mentor, a one-on-one relationship with adult role model that a number of these students are missing in their daily lives. Looking at the term from various perspectives, a mentor is special person who has been mandated in school to care about the student and will make attempts to hold them accountable for their actions (Herrera, et al., 2007). On the other hand, mentoring programme within the context of medical schools is seen by Terrion and Leonard (2007) as the process of encouraging them to become more engaged and involved with their education and stay in schools. A number of interventions have been developed to make medical students with academic deficiencies cope with their undergraduate programme, however, emotional and social deficiencies need also to be addressed for these students to overcome challenges faced. Going by Smith (2007) studies there are home and schools circumstances such as lack of adult support that makes them ill equipped in coping with the emotional and social situations associated with daily living in the school. Effectiveness of mentoring programmes among Saudi Arabian undergraduate programme has been contested owing to the lack of programme in most of medical schools. Reid (2008) notes that if medical students are paired with a competent and caring adult while taking their studies, especially in a one-by-one setting then these students are likely to overcome these challenges. The problem that has been noted with Reid (2008) assessment is that at the moment there are no mentoring programmes for medical students that are well established therefore there are some arguments from Hughes and Fahy (2009) for instance that Reid’s view and conclusion is not based on actual case studies within Saudi Arabia. In as much, effectiveness on mentoring programme in such schools cannot be disputed. Schoolars such as Crutcher (2007) notes that mentoring programme helps in creating positive and trusting relationship between student and adult within their studies. On other hand, Crutcher (2007) notes that medical students in Saudi Arabia have challenges such as English being their second language thus posing major challenges especially when they are supposed to use the language for their interaction with books. To this regard, Sipe and Roder (2009) notes that the mentor services as it is supposed to be offered by the university will be to foster a supportive and caring relationship, thus providing a clear guidelines and expectation for future career. Alliance for Excellence in Education (2010) notes that one challenge facing medical students in Saudi Arabia is failing to recognize what is expected of their course. In that regard it reaches a point where these students are overwhelmed with the content and expectations of their course. It is to this extent that mentoring programme help these students become self-confident, managetheir behaviours and have positive attitudes towards their career challenges. Campbell-Whatley (2001) argues that mentoring students that undertake technical courses such as engineering and medicine should not be based on advice but investing sufficient time for formalized and regularly scheduled meeting with documented objectives and outcomes. It is also essential, from the perspective of Hughes and Fahy (2009) to have a mentoring programme that keeps appropriate activity which is consistent with specific needs of students’ divergent challenges. It is for this reason that contemporary scholar looks at mentoring programme from the perspective of mentees. For students to be able to effectively cope with course challenges as well as issues faced at home, mentoring programme according to Campbell-Whatley (2001) must be a “Guidelines for the length and frequency of mentor-student contact must be determined. One to three hours per week is suggested. Mentors should be prepared to make a commitment for the entire academic year. Group and after-school activities must be planned in advance, placed on a calendar of activities, and shared with participants.” (p. 213). According to Campbell-Whatley (2001) it now remains that effectiveness of mentoring programme can be achieved when such programmes match student and mentor based on criteria as similar interest, gender, personalities, cultural or linguistic background and career choices. What is witnessed at the moment is a case where we have medical undergraduate students whose experiences in life, gender challenges and behavioral boundaries are not considered in their course outline. Therefore there is a challenge with what Campbell-Whatley (2001) has suggested as strategy to be adopted while mentoring medical students. That is, Campbell-Whatley’s proposal of mentorship does not exhibit cultural awareness and respect to their mentees as both individuals and members of larger social constructs requiring certain attributes or abilities, including selflessness, active listening skills, honesty, a non-judgmental attitude, persistence, patience, and an appreciation for diversity. Additionally, in working with University of Pretoria students, male populations, building the relationship between mentee and mentor, Crutcher (2007) found that mentoring programme is able to change deviant behaviours from students if such mentoring programmes are having firmer and accountability measures to the mentee. As already noted, a vital element of effective and successful mentoring is to develop a positive relationship between the mentee and mentor. This relationship has been further developed by Hughes and Fahy (2009) who identifies 4 strategies that are essential while coming up with mentoring programmes for medical undergraduate programme. These are: extra motivation, building mutual relationship, firmer limits and having a mentor who can hold them accountable especially on issues to do with professional code of conduct. One aspect that Hughes and Fahy (2009) fails to recognize in his assessment is that effectiveness of mentoring should begin with the process of identifying and resolving issues earlier on, requiring assurances of feedback and support between student and mentor. Reid (2008) implemented a mentoring programme with medical students at King Abdulaziz University who had difficulties in coping with others in terms of studies. The mentoring programme encompassed guiding them with regard to their environment, career expectations and effectively developing their self-esteem and individuality. At the completion of the programme, it is noted that the mentees showed statistically significant higher grade point averages as well as a lower absentee and rates of suspension. The core benefit of the programme was that mentors were active participants in coordination, development, and implementation of activities that could increase academic and behaviour success. What Reid (2008) has shown is that recognizing success of students is essential in mentoring programme and by coordinating, Reid meant involving parents as much as possible which will help mentors discern better approaches of assisting these students. The review above provides sound evidence that mentoring progamme when applied in undergraduate medical schools within Saudi Arabia, has a number of benefits such as reduction of dropout rates, improving students’ academic and social performance, helping learners cope with pressure and expectations of their courses as well as helping them change their behaviors. Additionally, the researches reviewed has indicated that applying mentoring programmes should include establishing adequate time investment, building good rapport and documenting accountability measures and celebrating their success. 3.0. Research Questions As already been established, using mentoring process and mentoring undergraduate medical students has been conceptualized differently in the academic literature and this is to mean that several dimensions views exist within UAE schools and as such, within the realm of the same institutions, the issues is contingent on many of the cultural and social aspects of such schools or institutions. As this continues to be the case, this research seeks to be specific in its understanding of the research topic. To achieve this, the following research questions have been identified: What is the effectiveness of mentoring programme to medical students in United Arabs Emirates? What do teachers identify as effective strategies for mentoring? How often are teacher mentor/student mentee sessions conducted? Based on the research questions, understanding how mentoring programme can be used in medical schools needs recent case studies from all leading levels of learning within Saudi Arabia as long as such levels have exhibited teaching of medicine to undergraduate students. To effectively integrate research data within the context of the research questions, each institution will represent a single unit of analysis thus regarded as a case study. Working with the research topic as a guideline, the identified institution will be a tool for analysis where we will focus on several participants within every institution. In order for the research data to answer specific questions as outlined, there will be a survey questionnaire sent in prior as a source of primary information with such given to top management of the institution as well as the students selected for the study. For the consistency of data from survey questionnaire, the same questions will be prepared regardless of the level of or the location of the institution where each questionnaire is sent. The identification of these research questions embeds the research to a specific purpose. The purpose is to understand the meaning of mentoring within the context of medical students and such embedded within the context of UAE universities. Such will try to focus on recent practices of the identified universities. Conversely, the research also recognizes that management and capability skills are essential element as far as mentoring is concerned and therefore must be developed within universities in United Arabs Emirates for the research to answer the above questions. Considering cultural diversities schools drop out and career changes among students taking medicine in UAE, there is worry that if mentoring is not introduced and their effectiveness well researched, statistics regarding deviant behaviours will continue to grow. In order to find the divergence of such understandings within the theoretical models, we need to focus the attention of this research proposal by exploring how universities have attempted to develop mentoring. More significantly, the best way to find how such mentoring have been done is to revisit literatures detailing such the same and such be done within the country of study as this will form the foundation for further analsysis and provide guidelines for the hypotheses, and the theoretical frameworks to be adopted. Secondly, this study will be focused on comparative analyses of what currently constitute mentoring strategies among students in medicine schools within UAE. 4.0. Methodology 4.1. Sampling This study will be working with three leading universities within Saudi Arabia. The universities selected for this study are those that admit and have medical programmes for United Arabs Emirates students irrespective of the country of origin for those students. The current mentoring program in these universities consider students who are at high risk because of poor attendance, low grades, low test scores, discipline referrals, family dynamics and social/personal concerns. In as much, the mentoring will not only focus on the at-risk students. This research proposal has considered aspects such as registration period for all students who would wish to be assigned to mentors being offered at the start of the university’s academic year. Similarly, mentees will generally be paid with mentors based on personal interests, grade levels and gender (where necessary). Based on the number of universities that will be used as case studies, the proposal considers that only sixty (60) mentor/mentee pairs to be the right number for the study and that is to mean the research will be dealing with 20 of such pairs from every three universities. Additionally, all staff will be expected to participate in the mentoring process. In such process, the staff will be tasked with the responsibility of choosing a student mentee or each of them be assigned a student mentee which will be running for a period of one year through the guidance departments in every university. 5.0. Data collection The database that will be used for students’ information concerning the mentorship programme will be from June 2010 until June 2014. The database aimed for this study will include information on the number of medical students that were able to transfer from these universities to alternative ones or those who transferred to take other courses other than medicine. This will also include statistics on the students who were out of school suspension as well as positive alternative to school suspension. Additionally, online surveys were included as new instruments developed by the researcher in collaboration with faculty members at the universities that have been identified for studies. This will be done through a questionnaire development process but also using Qualtrics Software supported by these Universities. The student mentee questionnaire will consist of seven logistical questions concerning how often they meet their mentor, period of time each meeting lasts and whether such meetings had positive impacts on their overall grades. The questionnaire will also cover disciplinary actions and their perceptions of their mentor. On the other hand the questionnaire also asked mentees to rate five items on a five-point Likert scale where the scale ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Their perceptions regarding their mentoring will be asked in the questionnaire. In so doing, the questionnaire will be designed to allow the respondents answer with either no, yes, or I don’t know, on a list of eight items. To provide an example of this, the list of the eight items will include ‘set career goals’, ‘explore mutual topics’, and ‘helped me with my economic and social skills’ among others. The mentor questionnaire will be a true reflection of the mentee questionnaire that will ask the same questions but from the perspective of the mentor, instead of the mentee. Additionally, the questionnaire will also be reviewed by the few experienced students mentees and mentors for understanding and clarity of questions, and will be reviewed by the Institutional Review Board of the research for the three universities. Mentees who will be participating in the research will complete the online survey during their exploratory classes. It is important to note that a makeup day for the students who will be absent will be conducted on the following exploratory class day. On the other hand, exploratory teachers will be given a list of mentees according to the grade level and this will monitor the mentees’ completion of the survey during the identified class time. Exploratory teachers will be reading a prepared script that will be giving directions to the students but this will be prior to beginning the survey. To ensure conformity to the research, mentors will receive emails that will be requesting their voluntary and confidential participation as per the Qualtrics online survey. A two week period will be allowed. In order for the research to realize full participation, mentors will receive reminders via their emails, and on the final day of the participation, there will be written remainder note that will be placed in each mentor’s mailbox. 6.0. Data Analysis and Interpretational Methods used Since we intend to interact directly with respondents through the questionnaire, thematic analysis model is going to be adopted to augur well with our quantitative analysis of the set survey questions. As answers from the questionnaire are expected to be divergent, as a model, thematic analysis will seek to find meanings to the comments given thereafter categorizing such comments into understandable format. In addition, this model has been adopted to ensure that comments that are similar or suggest the same theme are categorized differently. Once we have coded and categorized these comments into unique and or related themes, they will therefore be synchronized and ranked according to their importance to the research question and purpose of the study. Also important to note is that the comments provident will have different levels of acceptance and relationship to the research purpose. Therefore we will further analyse the already categorized or ranked comments to conceptualise the underlining meaning. This will further be underscored by applying relevant statistical analysis models so as to reach intended conclusion that also supports research questions. A blueprint of this information is as provided below: Application of confirmatory factor to test hypotheses Application of regression coefficient in measuring variables Adoption of factor analysis to find existing relationship between structures and variables 7.0. Risk and Risk Mitigation This research proposal intends to obtain data from busy universities therefore it may suffer low or marginal response rates. This is one of the risks we anticipate and have to be mitigated. The challenge with this risk is that in the event of low or marginal response rate, we will lack fair response. In addition to this, instance of self-motivated responses, bias misrepresentation of facts and ambiguous answers stand to be another risk. There are significant numbers of elements that have been suggested to deal with such risks. One of such is to make respondents feel part of this research and be made aware that the outcome of the research will benefit them and their university at large. This way, they will take the questionnaire as part of solutions to the inherent problems in their institutions. Another method of mitigating these risks is to provide them with relevant examples where participation of respondent led to the improvement of the researched organization. 8.0. Privacy This research proposal intends to guarantee confidentiality of the data as obtained from respondents and such will not be let to public domain. Secondly, anonymity of the data will be ensured by also ensuring respondents are not identified by their responses. To avoid leakage of the data, after it has been analysed and results obtained, the data from the questionnaire will be destroyed and the needed results archived for future retrieval. 9.0. Limitations and Advantages of Survey Questionnaire Aspects such as research design and desired outcome plays significant roles as far as methodology is concerned. This is where the survey questionnaire balances with respect to advantages and disadvantages it offers. Beginning with advantages of using survey questionnaire, it is cost effective. Bearing the number of institutions where data will be collected from, using online survey questionnaire particularly saves unnecessary expenditures. Other advantages attached to it are; time saving, manageable coding errors, accurate data entry into statistical package. On the other hand, unlike other methods, most institutions have interacted with questionnaires before therefore it is easy to build on their familiarity. Contrariwise, this method has a number of disadvantages. One of such is the difficulty in dictating number of responses thus creating uncertainty with regard to low response. Secondly, respondent may give flawed information deliberately. In addition, there are important aspects such as body language and tone that are not captured using this method unlike other methods such as interview. Also related to this, though the survey questionnaire has open ended questions where respondents are supposed to express their views freely, accuracy of answers are not guaranteed since one is not there to ask them to elaborate. 10.0. Timeline Task Duration (In months) Start Date Preliminary reading 3 Insert appropriately Research Proposal preparation 1 “ Approval by research supervisor 0.25 “ Preparation of survey questionnaire 1 “ Approval by research ethics committee 0.25 “ Research communication 0.5 “ Data collection phase 1 2 “ Data collection phase 2 2 “ Data collection phase 3 2 “ Data collection phase 4 1 “ Data analysis 1.5 “ Report preparation 1 “ 11.0. References Alliance for Excellence in Education (2010). The economic benefits of reducing the dropout rate in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Retrieved July 10, 2010 from, http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/EconMSA Campbell-Whatley, G. D. (2001). Mentoring students with mild disabilities: The nuts and bolts of program development. Intervention in School and Clinic, 36, 211-216. Crutcher, B. N. (2007).Mentoring across cultures. Education Digest, 73(4), 21-24. Retrieved February 7, 2008, from Academic Search Premier Database (28031225). Herrera, C., Grossman, J. B., Kauh, T. J., Feldman, A. F., & McMaken. (2007). Making a difference in schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring impact study. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures. Hughes, A., & Fahy, B. (2009). Implementing an undergraduate psychology mentoring program. North American Journal of Psychology, 11(3), 463–469. Manza, G. (2003, October). The state of mentoring 2003. Paper presented at 2003 National Research Summit on Mentoring, Kansas City, MO. Philip, K. and J. Spratt (2012) A synthesis of published research on mentoring and befriending for The Mentoring and Befriending Foundation The Rowan Group, University of Aberdeen. Reid, E.S. (2008). Mentoring peer mentors: Mentor education and support in the composition program. Composition Studies, 36(2), 51–79. Rhodes, J. E., & DuBois, D. L. (2006). Understanding and facilitating the youth mentoring movement. Social Policy Report: Society for Research in Child Development, 20(3), 3 19. Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Smith, E.R. (2007). Negotiating power and pedagogy in student teaching: Expanding and shifting roles in expert-novice discourse. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 15(1), 87–106. Sipe, C. L., & Roder, A. E. (2009). Mentoring school-age children: A classification of programs. Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures. (Published in collaboration with MENTOR/ National Mentoring Partnership, Alexandria, VA) Spencer, R. (2012). Understanding the mentoring process between adolescents and adults. Youth and Society, 37(3), 287-315. Terrion, J.L., & Leonard, D. (2007). A taxonomy of the characteristics of student peer mentors in higher education: Findings from a literature review. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 15(2), 149–164. Read More