Navigating Medical Curriculum Renewal: Faculty Experiences of Implementing a Renewed Assessment Plan Through the Lens of Change Theory

TL;DR

This paper explores how medical faculty experienced implementing a new assessment plan, highlighting challenges and the need for better support.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into faculty experiences during curriculum renewal, emphasizing the need for faculty development.

Findings

Faculty faced challenges but were generally committed to the assessment renewal process.

Collaboration and a supportive learning culture were identified as essential for successful implementation.

The study highlights the need for targeted faculty development to support assessment renewal.

Abstract

Curriculum renewal in medical education has received significant attention in recent years. While contemporary literature has highlighted various recommendations to guide curriculum renewal, an important perspective remains underexplored—the experiences of faculty who are responsible for implementing these changes. In this article, we provide insights into faculty’s experiences of the change process as they implement a renewed assessment plan for a medical programme, offering some recommendations for faculty development. A qualitative interpretivist approach was used. Focus group discussions were conducted with faculty who are teaching and assessing students on the first three modules in the renewed medical curriculum. A three-tiered approach suggested by Miles and Huberman guided the analysis of the data. Coding was inductive and thematic. Four themes were identified, namely the nature of change, a commitment to changing the purpose of assessment, the need for collaboration in taking the plan forward and the need for a culture that supports learning. The findings suggest that while there are various challenges associated with the implementation of the renewed assessment plan, faculty were generally invested in the process. Furthermore, there is a distinct call to advance faculty development to support skills required to undertake assessment renewal.