Katherine Weyant

Team Based and Multimedia Learning Combined with Mentorship to Improve Research Understanding, Practice, and Attitudes

Background: In healthcare, understanding evidence-based research and practice is essential for the educator to assure that the learner receives accurate dissemination of findings. Yet, many healthcare institutions fall short of achieving this aim. 

Local Problem: An interdisciplinary team of educators maintains various levels of research understanding and utilization. It has been observed that individuals who maintain a lower level of research mastery fail to interpret, synthesize, and disseminate new findings. 

Purpose: This project aimed to assess whether an eight-week multi-modal educational intervention that included team-based and multimedia-based learning combined with mentorship increased understanding and knowledge of research findings around evidence-based practice (EBP) and improved the learner’s attitudes and beliefs regarding their ability to deliver the findings to others. 

Methods: An adapted version of the New World Kirkpatrick Model was used as the framework to guide the project. This quality improvement project aimed to evaluate changes that resulted from the intervention among the project participants. 

Intervention: Participants were asked to complete the evidence-based practice questionnaire (EBPQ) before and after the eight-week educational intervention which was combined with mentorship. This tool was used to evaluate for changes in knowledge, practice, and beliefs among project participants. 

Results: Fourteen participants completed the intervention. The average pre-EBPQ score among all participants was 119. The average post-EBPQ score among participants was 133. There was a statistically significant difference between the pre and post EBPQ scores where the p-value was 0.0005 where p<0.05 was considered significant. Sub-scores were further evaluated for differences which revealed increases in knowledge by 17% and increases in practice by 10%. These changes were considered statistically significant. Interestingly, there was no statistically significant difference on the EBPQ regarding attitudes and beliefs of EBP. 

Conclusions: This project demonstrated that integration of an EBP educational intervention combined with mentorship improved knowledge and utilization of evidence-based data. 

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