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AbstractThis scoping review describes the responsibilities of facilitators, especially clinical teachers, in facilitating clinical reasoning and factors affecting the implementation of the strategies. This review was conducted by collecting and identifying original data in peer-reviewed full English journals published between 2004 and 2021. It followed Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. The process included formulating review questions, developing a comprehensive search strategy, selecting relevant studies, extracting data, and presenting findings. Initial searches were conducted on PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, and EMBASE, with a research librarian ensuring the efficiency and comprehensiveness of the search. The search based on the PCC approach (population, concept, context approach) encompassed “clinical reasoning,” “facilitation,” and “clinical teachers.” Out of the initial 2,004 records retrieved from the four databases, a thorough screening process led to the 30 studies included in the review, revealing three primary themes and multiple strategies related to clinical reasoning facilitation in clinical settings. These themes involved the responsibilities of clinical teachers, strategies utilized, and factors influencing clinical reasoning learning in clinical settings. In the clinical settings, clinical teachers have crucial responsibilities in facilitating clinical reasoning learning, including creating a safe environment, demonstrating effective practices, using appropriate strategies, and assessing students’ abilities. While this review has explored the responsibilities of clinical teachers, specific strategies that enhance clinical reasoning abilities need further investigation. Additionally, the impacts of identified factors on strengthening clinical reasoning abilities require more analysis.
IntroductionClinical reasoning is a multifaceted process that combines knowledge, cognition, and metacognition and is inherently tied to specific contexts [1-3]. It is a complex field that plays a crucial role in successfully diagnosing patients, as it constitutes a cognitive process and employs an organized and analytical approach for determining diagnoses, treatments, and investigations [1,4-9]. An accurate diagnosis is integral to a doctor’s professional competence, and developing strong clinical reasoning skills plays a vital role in mitigating diagnostic errors [10]. Several studies revealed that diagnostic errors affect approximately 5%–15% of cases, with contributing factors including deficient diagnostic skills, premature closure, failure to identify mistakes, inaccurate estimations, and a lack of hypotheses [11,12]. Inaccurate diagnoses can lead to inappropriate treatments, delays in necessary interventions, and unnecessary procedures, which can result in adverse health outcomes, prolonged suffering, and increased medical costs. Addressing and reducing diagnostic errors through enhancing clinical reasoning skills is essential for healthcare professionals to uphold the highest standards of patient care and maintain the integrity of the healthcare system [13].
Mastering clinical reasoning is a gradual process requiring well-structured learning processes and strategies [2]. Therefore, facilitating clinical reasoning should focus on optimizing strategies that can enhance roles of clinical reasoning in advanced clinical practices [14-18]. Some strategies used to cultivate clinical reasoning abilities include case-based learning, problem-solving activities, and directed self-learning [19]. Therefore, facilitating clinical reasoning should focus on both cognitive and metacognitive skills to develop proficient clinical reasoning skills in healthcare professionals [19]. Health profession students who can effectively implement metacognition skills can have more organized thoughts for learning, problem-solving, and clinical practices [16-18,20]. Clinical teachers who facilitate within clinical settings with students are expected to actively engage in the learning process, such as providing specific examples or brief case studies to support the strategy of facilitating clinical reasoning [2,21].
In addition, clinical teachers should promote active learning by encouraging learners to set new learning aims, keeping an interest in the learner’s application of newly learned knowledge and skills, repeatedly providing constructive feedback, and setting a role model of lifelong learning themselves [22]. They should orient students to the healthcare environment’s cultural and social aspects and shape students’ professional values as they prepare for practices [23]. Clinical teachers have a responsibility to help students overcome any deficiencies in their materials by integrating them into the curriculum. Therefore, they should adopt strategies that can optimize experiential learning for individual or a group of learners, such as promoting active learning and engaging learners in deliberate practices, reviewing knowledge and prior experiences to enhance motivation, supporting a psychologically safe learning environment, helping learners to set goals, fostering collaborative learning, structuring facilitations to link them to authentic responsibilities and tasks, and customizing content to individual learners [22,23].
As reported in several previous studies, clinical teachers have implemented various strategies to enhance clinical reasoning skills in healthcare professionals [2,19]. These strategies include case-based discussions, gamification, illness script worksheet approach, clinical simulations, and team debates. Recent studies have identified several effective approaches for strengthening diagnostic abilities, such as reflective reasoning, structured reflection, selfexplanation, a six-step pneumonic SNAPPS (summarize history and findings; narrow differentials; analyze differentials; probe preceptor about uncertainties; plan management; select case-related issues for self-study), workshops on clinical reasoning using illness scripts, and schema-based learning [24,25]. Reflective reasoning enhances self-awareness and improves diagnostic accuracy but may require more time and facilitators. Meanwhile, a structured reflection provides a systematic thinking framework, which helps beginners grasp the concepts more quickly, but excessive dependence on the structure may impede cognitive flexibility [26,27]. Selfexplanation promotes self-directed learning and emphasizes conceptual understanding, but some students may struggle to self-explain effectively without proper guidance [28-31].
Another study illustrated that problem-based learning significantly improved the clinical reasoning skills of medical students. The study found that small group learning platforms such as problem-based learning (PBL) are more effective in improving academic performance than traditional lectures for facilitating clinical reasoning skills [32]. Subsequently, the effectiveness of hybrid was compared to pure PBL in facilitating clinical reasoning skills to medical students. The integration of video materials and virtual patients in PBL were able to enhance clinical reasoning skills among medical students. Video materials can offer visual and auditory information, facilitating non-verbal communication and aiding in developing clinical reasoning skills [33]. Similarly, a study found that a simulation with problem-based learning (S-PBL) using high-risk obstetrics-gynecology scenarios effectively strengthened nursing students’ clinical reasoning ability [34]. These studies suggest that problembased learning is an effective method for developing clinical reasoning skills in healthcare professionals. Although some literatures have explored various teaching strategies, there remains a gap in understanding the roles of clinical facilitators in facilitating these strategies.
Facilitating clinical reasoning in clinical settings is challenging due to its abstract nature and the limitations faced by clinical teachers. These educators juggle various responsibilities, such as providing healthcare services, turning clinical moments into learning opportunities, giving feedback, and conducting assessments. Previous studies highlight the importance of understanding the responsibilities of clinical teachers in different strategies to enhance clinical reasoning [35-38]. However, the existing literature reveals a significant gap in understanding how clinical reasoning is taught and learned in clinical settings. Critical aspects and specific facets of clinical reasoning are insufficiently addressed, indicating a need for a thorough review. This gap is evident in the limited exploration of facilitating and learning processes, educators’ responsibilities, and translations of theoretical knowledge into practical decision-making. Addressing these limitations is crucial in the current healthcare field, in which recent developments and evolving challenges underscore the heightened importance of enhancing clinical reasoning skills.
Therefore, this scoping review is to demonstrate responsibilities of facilitators, strategies in facilitating clinical reasoning, and factors affecting the implementation of the strategy. The concepts on how clinical educators facilitate clinical reasoning will be formulated to strengthen clinical reasoning skills in learning. Hence, this scoping review will give insight into implementing clinical reasoning learning strategies. Medical education stakeholders, including clinical facilitators and students, can benefit from this review as it provides insights into optimizing interactions between clinical facilitators and students during clinical reasoning learning.
Materials and MethodsThis study applied a scoping review methodology to map the available evidence regarding the facilitations of clinical reasoning development. Following the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and the recommendation from the Joanna Briggs Institute, this scoping review was conducted through several key processes: (1) formulating scoping review questions, (2) developing a comprehensive search strategy, (3) screening and selecting relevant studies, (4) charting and extracting data from selected studies, and (5) analyzing and presenting the review results [39,40].
1. Formulating scoping review questionsThis scoping review aims to address the following key questions, which guide the focus and scope of this study: (1) Question 1: How do clinical facilitators facilitate clinical reasoning learning for students in clinical settings? (2) Question 2: What factors influence the facilitation of clinical reasoning in clinical settings?
Answering these questions fills the existing research gap and provides actionable insights for medical educators and students.
2. Developing a comprehensive search strategyTo ensure the rigor of the review processes, this study adhered to the established Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines during the initial search and study selection process [41,42]. An experienced research librarian was involved in designing the search strategy to ensure its efficiency and comprehensiveness. The initial search was conducted using Google Scholar and PubMed, focusing on facilitation processes of clinical reasoning in clinical settings. Keywords for the search were derived from the population, concept, and context (PCC) approach. The studies identified during the early search became a reference for conducting a more specified and refined subsequent search: (1) P: clinical teachers, physician, students, medical students; (2) C: education strategy, facilitation, teaching, clinical reasoning; and (3) C: medical education.
The systematic screening phase of the scoping review involved searching four major databases: PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, and EMBASE. The search process utilized relevant keywords following the PCC approach. The keywords entered were as follows: (1) Clinical Teacher* OR Physician* OR Teacher* OR student* OR Medic* Student* (to capture relevant studies involving clinical teachers, physicians, students, and medical students in the context of medical education); (2) AND Education* strategy* OR facilitation* OR Teach* (to identify studies related to educational strategies, facilitation, and teaching methods); and (3) AND Clinical reasoning OR Diagnostic Reasoning OR Clinical Decision Making AND Medical Education (to retrieve studies focusing on clinical reasoning, diagnostic reasoning, and clinical decision-making within the context of medical education).
The comprehensive use of these keywords allowed for a thorough and targeted search to identify relevant literature related to the facilitation of clinical reasoning development in clinical settings. Furthermore, the literature data search for conducting the scoping review was conducted with approval from the Medical and Health Research Ethics Committee (MHREC) of the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing at Universitas Gadjah Mada–Dr. Sardjito General Hospital (approval number: KE/FK/1175/EC/2021). The study protocol was not registered in any registry databases.
In addition, the inclusion and exclusion criteria applied in this study were as follows:
1) Inclusion criteriaThe studies or the literature were included if they focused on PCC approach, as mentioned in the previous section. Additionally, this scoping review considered peer-reviewed full journal with original data, published in English between 2004 and 2021, as well as dissertations and theses. The availability of the studies in full-text was required for this review.
3. Screening and selecting relevant studiesThe search was performed from four databases: PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, and EMBASE. Following the search process, duplicates were eliminated before compiling and uploading all found citations to web-based application namely Rayyan (Rayyan, Cambridge, USA; https://www.rayyan.ai) [43]. Each database’s screening was completed independently by both the first (Y.D.C.) and second (Y.S.) reviewers. In case of disagreements, a third (G.R.R.) reviewer facilitated discussions.
Furthermore, all reviewers (G.R.R., Y.S., and Y.D.C.) assessed the full texts of the studies for eligibility based on the pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. A further systematic screening was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. Review articles were excluded from data extraction but were utilized to identify additional studies through snowballing. Finally, the full-text reports of the selected records were retrieved.
4. Charting and extracting dataAs scoping reviews typically do not involve formal quality appraisal [39,40], studies in this review were not subjected to quality appraisal. All reviewers (G.R.R., Y.S., and Y.D.C.) individually reviewed the included studies to generate a description for each study using predefined, pilot-tested data extraction tools. The extracted data included details such as publication year, country where the study was conducted, study locations, study population characteristics, methodology employed, participant demographics, responsibilities of the facilitators, strategies employed for facilitating clinical reasoning, and factors that influence clinical reasoning. The research team thoroughly reviewed and discussed the charting process before its implementation.
5. Analyzing and presenting the review resultsA thematic analysis was undertaken for the content codes pertaining to the focus of the studies. Subsequently, the team met to develop themes from the included studies across various content criteria. This approach allowed for including all studies, even studies describing facilitations of clinical reasoning that were not explicitly defined. Each included study was used to produce multiple themes. Regular meetings throughout the process enabled the team to resolve conflicts and ensure coding consistency. This collaborative approach to data coding ensured the accuracy and reliability of the results and findings of the scoping review.
Results1. Selection of sources of evidenceA total of 2,004 records were obtained from four databases, including PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, and EMBASE. Following the manual deduplication in Rayyan, 52 duplicates were eliminated, reducing their number to 1,952 records. During the screening process based on title and abstract, 1,850 records were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria. The remaining 102 reports underwent eligibility assessment; however, the full text of two reports could not be retrieved. Ultimately, 100 reports were assessed for eligibility, excluding 70 reports that did not meet the inclusion criteria. Consequently, 30 studies were included in the review. Fig. 1 illustrates the flow of the search process and the results.
2. ThemesThis scoping review identified three main themes concerning the facilitations of clinical reasoning in clinical settings. These themes encompass the responsibilities of clinical teachers, strategies employed in the process of clinical reasoning, and factors that impact clinical reasoning learning in clinical settings.
1) Roles of clinical teachersThe clinical teachers play various important responsibilities in facilitating clinical reasoning in clinical settings. Firstly, they are responsible for creating an optimal learning environment, which involves supervising and ensuring the quality of learning while fostering a positive atmosphere among patients, students, and themselves [8,44]. Secondly, they actively engage in describing the clinical reasoning processes to students. They demonstrate their clinical reasoning skills during interactions with the students, allowing them to become familiar with different cases and scenarios [45].
The responsibilities of them in facilitating clinical reasoning can be summarized into several aspects, as shown in Table 1 [44-64]. These aspects include providing an optimal learning environment, describing the process of clinical reasoning, assessing students’ abilities, and implementing effective learning techniques and methods. These responsibilities collectively contribute to enhancing students’ clinical reasoning skills and understanding in the clinical setting [54].
2) Facilitation techniquesClinical reasoning can be facilitated through both analytical and non-analytical approaches (Table 2) [46, 48-54,57,59]. Analytical facilitation involves methods such as explaining the reasoning behind a diagnosis, engaging in discussions on relevant topics, and interpreting obtained results [48,49,65]. Analytical learning can be approached in various ways, such as encouraging students to identify differences and similarities between categories by comparing and contrasting examination features of different diagnoses, and asking them to make assumptions to establish a diagnosis through collaborative discussions [50,57]. If the students face difficulties in identifying clinical aspects, the clinical teachers can provide cues in forms of questions [59].
Non-analytical reasoning can be fostered by observing the intuition demonstrated by clinical facilitators, learning from related cases, watching videos that exemplify anchoring and heuristic-intuitive-Bayesian reasoning, and encouraging students to make oral case presentations using a pattern recognition approach [46,51-53]. These non-analytical methods enable them to develop their intuitive decision-making skills in clinical reasoning. By incorporating both analytical and non-analytical approaches, the clinical teachers can effectively support and enhance the students’ clinical reasoning abilities in the clinical setting.
Apart from using a thinking approach, clinical teachers should assess student abilities. Clinical teachers are responsible for assessing students’ abilities and implementing appropriate learning techniques and methods. To assess the students, they can administer pre- and postlearning tests and provide feedback based on their performance [56]. Feedback is used as a tool for reflection and evaluation of learning strategies [44,60]. It can be given after clinical procedures or tasks, providing justifications for correct actions and explanations for any errors [47,55,65].
In terms of facilitation methods, clinical teachers can implement diverse techniques, such as the “think-aloud” approach, using semantic qualifiers, self-explanation by students, illness script approach, peer teaching, presenting clinical cases, and conducting small group learning [44,48,56,60]. The clinical cases used for learning can be real cases or simulations, including case presentations, paper-based clinical scenarios, virtual case distribution, case distribution followed by semi-open questions from experts, and tutorials with problem-based learning [43-45, 61,63,66,67].
Furthermore, clinical teachers can utilize a real case approach, engaging the students to handle and discuss actual cases with the guidance of experts. They can also provide opportunities for the students to practice with undifferentiated patients and solve cases under time constraints [47,54,63]. Learning with a clinical case approach can be done by learning in small groups. Learning can involve role-playing as a doctor and patient, and providing study materials [48,57,60]. Responsibilities within the group can be structured as one student as a doctor and one as a patient, or two students as doctors and one as a patient. Interactive learning techniques can also be used, such as telling a case story and engaging students in discussions [56,59,62].
3) Factors affecting the facilitationsThe processes of facilitating clinical reasoning are influenced by both internal and external factors (Table 3) [8,46,47,50,53,54,56-58,60-64,67-73]. Internal factors pertain to psychological and cognitive abilities, personality traits, learning styles, and motivation. Psychological abilities include the ability to recognize differences in clinical situations, psychological conditions, self-confidence, and students’ readiness to cooperate, and so forth [52,59,70,71,74,75]. Cognitive abilities are influenced by basic cognition, concepts, and relational cognition. Basic cognition involves essential clinical reasoning abilities, knowledge inadequacy in pathophysiology, critical thinking skills, conceptual abilities, and information filtering [10,47,50,53,62,64,65,75].
Concepts and relational cognition affect cognitive abilities by impacting the understanding of cause-andeffect relationships, handling uncertainty, selecting standardized diagnostic criteria, and drawing upon prior knowledge [10,46,56]. Personality abilities are influenced by interactions with experts and cases, problem-solving skills, and the frequency of patient encounters [8,57,65, 67,71,76].
Next, external factors consist of environmental and clinical facilitator-related aspects. Environmental factors encompass clinical settings and interactions, while clinical teachers-related factors include their facilitation styles, the consistency of feedback provision, team/clinical theme sustainability, and the clinical teachers’ abilities to recognize students’ challenges [8,57,58,62,63,77]. These internal and external factors collectively shape the facilitations of clinical reasoning in the clinical settings.
The clinical teachers can implement various techniques to facilitate clinical reasoning for the students. These techniques include: (1) verbal case reports (this technique involves presenting a clinical case to students verbally and asking them to identify the relevant clinical features and to make a diagnosis), (2) prompt of illness scripts (this technique involves providing students with a set of symptoms and asking them to generate a list of possible diagnoses based on their knowledge of illness scripts), (3) integrated case learning with patients’ treatment experiences (this technique involves integrating the patient’s treatment experiences into the learning process to help students understand the clinical reasoning behind the treatment decisions), (4) virtual patient case simulation (this technique involves using computer-based simulations to provide students with realistic clinical scenarios and opportunities to practice clinical reasoning), (5) problem-based learning tutorials (this technique involves presenting students with a clinical problem and asking them to work together to identify relevant clinical features and develop a diagnosis and treatment plan), and (6) Bayesian learning method (this technique involves using probability theory to help students make clinical decisions based on the available evidence [46,55,56,60,62,67,69, 76,78].
To enhance the students’ capacity, the clinical teachers can utilize techniques such as the self-explanation method, think aloud approach, and prompting students to conduct literature searches [58,64,65]. Additionally, various educational training programs have been proven effective in improving clinical reasoning. These include interactive case-based didactic sessions, role-play exercises, learner-centered teleconferences, clinical seminars, case-based collaborative learning in PBL, clinical reasoning workshops and seminars, lectures with feedback, clinical reasoning courses, and case discussions [8,48,51,55,63,70,71,73]. Furthermore, characteristics of included reports can be seen in Table 4 [8,44-64,67-72, 76,77].
DiscussionThe clinical teachers are multifaceted responsible in facilitating clinical reasoning in clinical settings, as shown in Table 1. Those responsibilities can be summarized into several aspects, including (1) creating a culturally safe learning environment, (2) elucidating the clinical reasoning process, (3) implementing diverse learning techniques, and (4) evaluating students’ progress, which contributes to the effective development and application of clinical reasoning skills among the students in the clinical settings.
In the clinical settings, clinical teachers should be concerned about the learning environment. Creating a safe and supportive learning environment is crucial for them to enhance student competency in the clinical settings. Direct interactions between students, patients, and medical staff are vital for experiential learning, but they can also trigger emotional adjustments, leading to their anxiety. Mild anxiety can be beneficial, promoting heightened awareness and control, while excessive anxiety can hinder productivity and negatively impact learning effectiveness and professional behavior [79,80]. Therefore, the clinical teachers play a vital role in maintaining a comfortable learning atmosphere, optimizing student performance, and encouraging continuous improvement in clinical reasoning capacities. A positive learning environment fosters patient interaction and provides ample opportunities for hands-on practice and active engagement in the learning process [81].
In addition, clinical teachers are also responsible for facilitating effective techniques of the thinking process. The facilitation techniques employed will significantly impact students’ learning experiences and outcomes [82]. This underscores the importance of clinical teachers in shaping their students’ understanding of clinical reasoning and their ability to apply it effectively in real-world scenarios. This scoping review identified various techniques to facilitate clinical reasoning, including utilizing clinical cases, conducting small group discussions, promoting students’ thinking aloud, employing semantic qualifiers, and constructing illness scripts during the learning process [56,60,83]. These techniques are adapted to meet the specific requirements for facilitating and enhancing students’ clinical reasoning learning experiences.
Clinical reasoning, an essential skill for medical professionals, can be taught by clinical teachers who demonstrate their professional thought processes during the learning session. It involves two techniques: the analytical approach, in which information is analyzed and hypotheses are formed, and the non-analytical approach, in which reasoning is based on existing patterns and automated responses [84]. The analytical approach is commonly used in learning, involving making hypotheses and guesses based on observed clinical conditions [54]. It deepens understanding and enhances students’ clinical reasoning skills. In this approach, the facilitation process emphasizes “why” and “how” during learning interactions [83]. Various methods can facilitate learning, such as explaining reasons for a diagnosis and discussing observations and aspects from patient histories [50]. Encouraging students to identify differences and similarities in each category and comparing examination features in different diagnoses also supports the analytical approach [57]. In clinical settings, the students use the analytical approach for clinical reasoning [49]. Clinical teachers can facilitate this approach by giving clues, encouraging differentiation between categories, and using the hypothetico-deductive model [50,57]. Meanwhile, in the non-analytical approach, the learning is focused on recognizing disease patterns from numerous clinical cases, leading to intuitive observation in handling cases [51,53]. This method is effective for frequently encountered cases, enhancing their independent clinical reasoning skills [85].
The primary method to enhance students’ clinical reasoning is through providing clinical cases, which simplifies cognitive load and consolidates partially stored knowledge into a comprehensive form [86,87]. The cognitive and intellectual load in the clinical reasoning session can be optimized by Young et al. [88]. Cognitive load theory (CLT) addresses intrinsic, extraneous, and germane load in the memory system during the learning process, aiming to reduce extraneous load and utilize working memory capacity efficiently to enhance learning [88-90]. In addition, CLT is consistent with constructivism learning theory, which posits that learners actively construct their understanding and knowledge through interactions with their environment, including patients, experts, and peers [91]. Constructivism, rooted in the works of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner, emphasizes the active construction of knowledge based on learners’ prior experiences [91]. Learning with clinical cases stimulates the reasoning process and activates working memory, which has limited capacity; the students must focus intensely on incoming information. Prior knowledge is activated and processed in working memory through chunking, dividing incoming information into manageable parts to store information and knowledge in long-term memory [88]. It will emphasize the importance of managing working memory during clinical reasoning learning.
Further, increasing the germane load involves incorporating clinical contexts in medical education [92]. The CLT emphasizes the importance of aligning the learning process with the structure of the human brain for effective approaches [90]. Thus, the clinical teachers should assess students’ existing knowledge before providing clinical practice knowledge [82].
Clinical practice knowledge can be delivered to medical students through direct patient encounters or separate case discussions. In the previous systematic review, this learning can be facilitated by the virtual simulations with virtual patients [93]. This learning not only improves the clinical reasoning skills of individual students but also of teams [94]. However, the role of clinical teachers in facilitating this clinical reasoning will be vague.
Meanwhile, learning using real cases and simulations is the most useful way to improve students’ clinical reasoning [93], and it will not be separated from the role of clinical educator lecturers. It is included in one of the challenges for effective educational strategies: overcoming knowledge gaps, using clinical examples, and strengthening reflection on diagnostic justification [95]. This learning certainly encourages lecturers’ active and essential role as facilitators in learning clinical reasoning. Moreover, case discussions are more effective in small groups, enabling better interactions between the students and clinical teachers, and allowing the clinical teachers to observe students’ clinical reasoning skills. These discussions can involve real cases or simulations and cover various aspects such as formulating a diagnosis, understanding disease pathogenesis, and treatment options. Goals setting in practical discussions will promote effective learning, aligning with the positive impacts of goal setting, mastery learning, and small group learning in the clinical facilitating process [83]. The activity of clinical teachersstudent discussions about clinical reasoning during patient examinations will also result in optimum germane load and minimum extraneous and intrinsic load.
Another technique to facilitate clinical reasoning is thinking aloud. “Thinking aloud” is a learning technique that enhances knowledge transfer by promoting retention and understanding. When the students think aloud, they explain their understanding, which expands with feedback. Apart from asking students to convey their ideas in thinking aloud, there is also a technique for encouraging students’ clinical reasoning abilities with a semantic qualifier approach. Semantic qualifiers aid in analyzing learning activities by reprocessing patient terms into relevant medical terminology. The learning technique reduces cognitive load and lowers working memory demands. It fosters students’ opinions, improves reasoning skills through effective feedback, and improves motivation, emotion, and cognitive performance [88,96].
Clinical teachers should provide numerous cases to develop schemata and utilize videos for intuitive understanding [46,52]. Additionally, oral presentations with a pattern recognition approach can improve students’ clinical analysis and reasoning [53]. Furthermore, clinical teachers facilitate clinical reasoning by conducting assessments that monitor their competence and thinking skills. Assessment for learning, including pre-tests and post-tests, helps gauge their abilities. Understanding students’ levels enable the clinical teachers to tailor learning approaches and optimize learning outcomes. Providing feedback and assessing cognitive abilities aid in this assessment process.
The strength of this study lies in its novelty, underscored by its comprehensive exploration of multifaceted roles and practical recommendations, which fill a gap in the existing literature. As there are limited papers with similar scopes, this study provides significant value by delivering nuanced guidance for optimizing clinical reasoning instruction, addressing a critical aspect of medical education.
However, limitations are evident in this review. While the review provides a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted roles and strategies in clinical reasoning, it does not delve into specific contextual variations or cultural influences that may impact the effectiveness of these techniques. Recognizing the diversity of healthcare settings and student populations, future research should consider these contextual factors to provide a more nuanced understanding of clinical reasoning facilitations. Additionally, the time frame of searching was limited to the years 2004–2021, and the search was restricted to just four databases, potentially excluding some relevant literature. Furthermore, there may have been a lack of information on clinical reasoning facilitations in other healthcare professions, as these were not included. This study also included only studies published in English which may constrain the comprehensiveness of the searching process.
ConclusionIn conclusion, this scoping review highlights the pivotal responsibilities of clinical teachers in shaping and enhancing clinical reasoning skills among students. While acknowledging the foundational significance of the facilitators in stimulating learning, this study suggests several applicable insights for educators. The recommendation of this study includes formulating the role of clinical lecturers to facilitate clinical reasoning based on the scope obtained in this scoping review. In addition, lecturers’ role in facilitating clinical reasoning also needs to be integrated with the currently developing technology. Lecturers can further assist students in acquiring clinical reasoning skills without ignoring where the information was obtained. These insights contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the multifaceted responsibilities of clinical facilitators and provide practical guidance for optimizing clinical reasoning instruction. In the future, clinical reasoning learning must also prioritize ethical considerations, cultural competence, and societal implications in healthcare decisions. Preparing students for a socially aware and ethically responsible medical practice becomes increasingly vital, ensuring healthcare professionals manage complexities with sensitivity and contribute to a holistic and socially conscious healthcare environment.
NotesAcknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for supporting this study. The authors also thank to Vita Widyasari, Erna Rochmawati, and Rosaria Indah for the time and enthusiasm given in the preparation and evaluation of this review.
Funding
This study was funded by Final Project Recognition Grant of Universitas Gajah Mada (Ref. number: 5075/UNI.P.II/Dit-Lit/PT.01.01/2023).
Author contributions
YDC: conceived and designed the experiments; performed the experiments; analyzed and interpreted the data; contributed materials, analysis tools or data; and wrote the paper. YS: analyzed and interpreted the data; contributed materials, analysis tools or data; and wrote the paper. GRR: contributed materials, analysis tools or data; analyzed and interpreted the data; and wrote the paper. Furthermore, all authors have approved the final version of manuscript.
Fig. 1.Flowchart of the Study Selection Process based on PRISMA GuidelinePRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses.
![]() Table 1.The Responsibilities of Clinical Teacher in Facilitating Clinical Reasoning
Table 2.The Facilitating Techniques of Clinical Teacher Based on the Thinking Process
Table 3.Factors Affecting the Facilitation of Students’ Clinical Reasoning
Table 4.Characteristics of Included Reports
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