China Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal Club

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Language Disorders
• Interventions: Behavioral: Intensive Journal Club; Behavioral: Self Study Journal Club

• Registration Number: NCT01844609
• Lead Sponsor: Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if an intensive journal club based on articles and materials provided on the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology Website improves written and spoken comprehension of medical English in a population of Chinese medical professionals.

Detailed Description

This will be a randomized educational trial of an intensive journal club compared to a self study journal club (1:1 randomization). Randomization will take place after baseline.

The population will consist of 50 medical professionals at Heilongjiang University in Harbin China, who agree to participate in an 8 week educational intervention.

This study will assess the impact of applying English for Specific Purposes(ESP) pedagogy to foreign medical education and specifically evaluate learning in the field of obstetrics and gynecology(Ob-Gyn). ESP is a subdivision of a wider field, Language for Specific Purposes(LSP), defined as the area of inquiry and practice in the development of language programs for people who need a language to meet a predictable range of communicative needs. ESP emphasizes teaching language in context and designs a curriculum around the results of a needs assessment, to more accurately determine which language skills are of priority: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Part of the theory behind ESP suggests that being able to use the vocabulary and structures that students learn in a meaningful context reinforces what is taught and increases motivation. Further, findings from a study by Okamura (2006) that examined how learners succeed in mastering scientific discourse in English showed that they focused on reading academic texts in their field to learn typical writing patterns. This is as opposed to junior learners who focused on mastering the English language by reading English texts written by authors from a breadth of fields. This application of ESP thus reflects how content-specific source articles could serve as rhetorical models and suggests that source articles are able to mediate scholarly writing and learning within the zone of proximal developmental; that is, learners are simultaneously gaining new content knowledge while increasing their skill base.

The proposed intervention is to design an ESP curriculum for medical professionals, specifically Ob-Gyn physicians and researchers at a Chinese Medical University, based on the journal club format and source articles. The study will quantitatively assess the impact of this model on student's ESP language comprehension as well as determine the necessity of the traditional "facilitator" role for a journal club whose purpose is to foster language literacy in non-English speaking universities.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2013-04-29
• Study First Submitted QC: 2013-04-29
• Study Start: 2013-05
• Study First Posted: 2013-05-01
• Primary Completion: 2013-07
• Study Completion: 2013-07
• Status Verified: 2013-10
• Last Update Submitted: 2013-10-24
• Last Update Posted: 2013-10-25

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 50

Inclusion Criteria

• Chinese medical professional

Exclusion Criteria

• English speaking fluency
• Non-Chinese speaking medical professional

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Intensive Journal Club	Intensive Journal Club	25 Chinese Medical Professionals that will be participating Face to Face Journal Club Meetings three times a week for one hour for 8 weeks along with a native English speaking mentor.
Self Study Journal Club	Self Study Journal Club	25 Chinese Medical Professionals that will be participating in Self Study Journal Club Meetings three times a week for one hour for 8 weeks with interactive questions and answers and discussion of the journal articles.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in score from baseline on a 30 question multiple choice exam (questions and answers will be read to the participants) based on APGO-CREOGH shelf exams.	Baseline to 8 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in score from baseline on a written (short answer) exam and on an oral exam.	Baseline to 8 weeks

Trial Locations

Locations (2)

Penn State Hershey Medical Center; 🇺🇸 Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States

First Affiliated Hospital Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine; 🇨🇳 Harbin, China