Die aktive Beteiligung deutschsprachiger Länder an den Konferenzen der Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) zwischen 2005 und 2013: Spiegelbild der Entwicklung der medizinischen Ausbildungsforschung?

Abstract

[english] Objectives: Medical education is gaining in significance internationally. A growing interest in the field has been observed in German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) since the early 2000s. This interest is not, however, reflected in an increase in the number of publications on medical education of German-speaking authors in international professional journals. The following investigation examines the potential use of active participant numbers of German-speaking researchers at AMEE conferences as a means of measuring said development. Methods: The AMEE conference proceedings from the categories and from the years 2005-2013 were examined for evidence of Austrian, German and Swiss participation. The abstracts were subsequently analysed in terms of content and categorised according to , and .Results: Of the 9,446 analysed abstracts, 549 contributions show at least one first, last or co-author from Austria, Germany or Switzerland. The absolute number of contributions per conference varied between 44 in 2010 and 77 in 2013. The percentage fluctuated between 10% in 2005 and 4.1% in 2010. From the year 2010 onwards, however, participation increased continually. The research was predominantly descriptive (62.7%). Studies on fundamental questions of teaching and learning () were less frequent (4.0%). For the most part, quantitative methods (51.9%) were implemented in addressing subjects such as (33%), (22.4%) or (14.4%). The study population was usually comprised of students (52.5%).Conclusions: The number of contributions from Austria, Germany and Switzerland peak at the beginning and at the end of the evaluated period of time. A continual increase in active participation since 2005 was not observed. These observations do not reflect the actual increase of interest in medical education research in German-speaking countries.

Keywords

• medical education
• AMEE
• conferences and congresses
• Austria
• Germany
• Switzerland
• research design