Dr. Ryan Brydges obtained his PhD from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto in 2010. His doctoral dissertation focused on clarifying evidence-based principles to inform the design of simulation-based learning environments, with particular attention to how students learn in a self-regulated manner and how they make use of learning resources in different experimental conditions. Dr. Brydges then completed an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Glenn Regehr at the University of British Columbia. In that role, he developed an interest in the complex interplay between trainees and clinical educators in the contexts of clinical training (e.g., simulation centres) and of daily clinical practice (e.g., clerkship rotations).
A need is crystallizing in health professions education for research that determines how to enhance trainees’ natural affordances while understanding and studying how to support their natural limitations. Dr. Brydges’ research program aims to study the nature of these affordances and limitations and the mechanisms by which excellent teachers address them. Typical research studies involve observing how trainees learn clinical content (e.g., physical examination skills) when they are unsupervised and when they are interacting with an educator. Dr. Brydges emphasizes the study of learning from both a learner-oriented and an educator-informed perspective.
From a learner-oriented perspective we might answer: how do learners’ expectations compare with educators’ expectations? What cues do learners self-monitor to inform their judgments of learning progress? How do learners ‘decide when they have learned enough’ during a given learning session?
Likewise, from an educator-informed perspective we might answer: how does an educator’s intervention ‘land on’ each trainee and how does the trainee use that information to create a positive learning effect? How can we translate the best practices of educator-led learning into support structures to help direct learners when they engage in self-regulated learning?
Developing answers to these and related questions when students work with educational technologies (e.g., simulation, web-based modules, etc) and learn via direct patient care will be key in learning how to build and create conditions that promote effective lifelong self-regulated learning among health care professionals. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and mixing of the two, will be key in understanding these processes and are used often in Dr. Brydges’ laboratory.