Helen Foster-Collins

Discipline: Education
Research Centre/Unit: Centre for Research in Professional Learning

Project Summary

Interprofessional learning, support and feedback, in early career professionals.

Previous research suggests that much professional learning takes place within informal workplace contexts, and that interprofessional support may be an important aspect of this learning.

The 1st stage of my PhD project was an analysis of secondary data provided by the research team, to explore the support, advice and feedback that first-year trainee doctors receive during their first year, and specifically:
(i)    which other medical professionals and staff provide support,
(ii)   what range of support types do they provide,
(iii)  which factors influence whether support is sought or provided,

In the 2nd stage, I collected and analysed new narrative interview data, from newly-qualified secondary-school teachers in or at the end of their first year of practice, to explore the support that they received from others and the factors which influenced this. I also conducted a cross-professional analysis of interprofessional support for early-career professionals, using new doctors and teachers for comparison.

Supervisory Team

Professors Karen Mattick and Vivienne Baumfield, co-leads of the Centre for Research in Professional Learning at the University of Exeter, provided primary supervision for this project, contributing expertise upon medical and education research, and theories of workplace learning.

Our international collaborative team also included Professor Charlotte Rees, at the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University in Australia and Professor Lynn V. Monrouxe, ‎Director of Medical Education Research at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan, who kindly provided access to their UK data-sets, and contributed to supervision, data analysis and dissemination of findings.

Authored Publications/Reports

Foster-Collins, H. (December 2017) Interprofessional Learning, Support and Feedback in Early Career Professionals, Research Intelligence, 134, 28

Helen Foster-Collins (28th September 2018) BERA Blog: To thrive, new teachers need environments of trust, https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/to-thrive-new-teachers-need-environments-of-trust

Helen Foster-Collins, on behalf of SOFT UK (August 2019) A report of experiences and feedback from parents and carers, https://www.soft.org.uk/system/cmsassets/1005.pdf