Exploring the GP Surgery as a Sociomaterial Learning Environment v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the GP Surgery as a Sociomaterial Learning Environment
IRAS ID
314735
Contact name
Anthony Codd
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 10 months, 27 days
Research summary
UK medical students spend an average of 9% of their curriculum in the General Practice (GP) learning environment, with most schools planning to expand GP teaching over the next five years. Data currently being analysed by the research team suggest that undergraduate clinical placements in GP are complex, multifaceted experiences, the quality of which extends beyond the core interaction of student, teacher, and patient. Established measures of clinical placement quality highlight the importance of the learning environment in the clinical experience, although position the ‘learning environment’ as a primarily social phenomenon, with consideration of material components (objects, tools, ‘things’) secondary or absent.
Current medical education research views training environments primarily from a social and cultural perspective. While important, a holistic view would encompass the impact of the physical environment on learning. There is a relative lack of data regarding the role of material factors, and how they interact with human and social factors. The emergence of ‘sociomaterial’ theory in the medical education literature provides a novel theoretical lens through which to study GP learning environments, positioning human and material factors (or ‘people and things’) as equals.
By considering the GP learning environment as a sociomaterial practice, this project would seek to make visible the influence of both human and non-human actors on modern GP teaching that are otherwise “…simply part of the backdrop for human action, dismissed in a preoccupation with consciousness and cognition, or relegated to brute tools subordinated to human intention and design”.
The aim of the project is to examine the GP surgery as a sociomaterial learning environment. This would make visible the mediators of teaching and learning in undergraduate GP placements, which will allow steps to be taken to address these – fortifying aspects that work well, and improving those that may be inhibitory.
REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/PR/1119
Date of REC Opinion
4 Oct 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion