Trial Study

Previous to my dissertation, a trial study was made aimed to review and test the methods and methodology; the study question focussed on how I would conduct the trial and how it would function as a pilot study for my dissertation (main study). To make a trial study is an important step previous to a main study in order to ensure that the research procedure will have the results intended, to determine the feasibility of the study, to review and test the methods and methodology, to identify problems with the design of the study and the sampling method and to test and improve data collection instruments (Cohen, et al., 2011). The title of my trial study was: “General Surgery Residents’ Perceptions of the use of Virtual Reality as a training method”. The study question focussed on understanding General Surgery Residents’ perceptions about using virtual reality as a training method to improve their knowledge and skills in general surgery. The purpose of doing this trial study was aimed to explain the methods that I will use in my dissertation and the lessons that I learned after finishing the trial study to be applied in my main study. The trial study modelled a similar inquiry process to the main study. It was designed to offer insights into anything that might ultimately challenge the empirical basis, epistemological foundations, methodology, methods, viability, feasibility, rigour, credibility and utility of the proposed main research. The trial study used the same type of participants than the main research: Medical Residents, with the difference that in my trial study participants were General Surgery’s Residents and in my main study they were Intensive Care’s Residents. Another difference with my main study was that participants did not receive a

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workshop and that there was only one interview. The trial study’s interview questions had a similar essence to the main study, inquiring about the perception of the residents about certain actions or procedures that were related with their professional training and personal development. In my trial study, participants’ perceptions were about the use of virtual reality, in my main study, participant’s perceptions were about their teaching skills before and after receiving a Resident- as-Teacher Workshop. The sampling method chosen was non-probabilistic purposive sampling. I selected participants from a target population with certain characteristics like being medical residents and being part of the General Surgery Postgraduate Program in Hospital Luis Vernaza and willing to take part in the research (Marshall, 1996). I must acknowledge that because of the chosen subset, there may be some limitations on generalisability beyond Ecuador. However, their characteristics (for example in terms of educational background, gender, socio- economic class) is similar to that found amongst residents in this speciality elsewhere in the world, particularly in Latin America. Hence it was felt that the choice of sample would allow the implications of the research to be extended beyond the particular case.

My target population was thirty General Surgery Residents, 16 females and 14 males; they were young physicians and their age was around 24 to 30 years old, they were from different parts of the country (Ecuador) and they were in different levels of training (R1, R2, R3). The study sample consisted of 5 residents of whom 3 were male and 2 females. The main purpose of using this method was to find out what is “in and on someone else's mind” (Patton, 2002, p. 341), in this particular case in General Surgery Residents’ mind about using virtual reality. About this, Patton wrote: “...I interview people to find out from them those things I cannot directly observe’ (p. 340).” This was important in order to engage and create a rapport with the interviewees allowing participants to start thinking more deeply about their experiences and perception of the research topic.

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I believed and that was my statement at that time, that this method will be useful in my dissertation research being that I will be studying participants’ perception of a given situation that includes their meaning of experience and the way that experience impact on their learning process. Using semi-structured interviews in my trial study, allowed me to ask a series of questions, with accompanying queries that probe for more detailed and contextual data, having access to rich, in-depth information that helped me to understand the unique and shared aspects of lives, attributed to participants’ lived experiences (Piercy & Cheek, 2004). The main focus of the interviews was to ask participants to describe their experiences, feelings, thoughts and perceptions about the use of virtual reality in their surgical training and also what factors might affect their perception about virtual reality and whether their perception had changed from their earlier years of schooling (and if so why). My trial study served to consider, learn and understand how qualitative methods as interviews and interpretative approach are appropriate to inquire and gather data that will contribute to understand participants’ perception about a given issue, and also to uncover the meaning of their experiences, thoughts and feelings. It also allowed me to apply certain changes in my main study such as data collection analysis and the type of questions that I have to use in my interviews in order to capture participants’ perception about the topic.

After finishing the trial, the lessons incorporated to enhance the main study were related to the design of the study, the sampling method, the type of interviews and the codification of the interview answers in order to obtain conclusions and explain my findings. My trial study was phenomenographic research that used a qualitative method with an interpretative approach and was aimed to understand General Surgery Residents’ perceptions about using Virtual Reality as a Training Method. Qualitative approaches share a similar goal in that they seek to arrive at an understanding of a particular phenomenon from the perspective of those experiencing it (Vaismoradi, et al., 2013). This approach was chosen because it is an in-depth exploration of what participants think, feel or do and crucially the

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reasons why they behave or perceive things in certain way. Phenomenography is a qualitative research methodology, within the interpretivist paradigm used to inquire into the way that people experience and perceive something and aims to reveal the different ways in which people conceptualise various phenomena in the world around them (Marton, et al., 2015). It provides a description of phenomena, which not only characterises different conceptions of learning, but also searches for relationships both within and between these conceptions. Qualitative researchers seek to understand human phenomena and experience in their particularities of persons, places, times and cultural and social contexts. An interpretative approach has been used in a number of attempts to describe the meaning of participants’ lived experiences of teaching and learning (see for example (Gilgun, 2006); (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Through this method and using semi-structured interviews I attempted, in my trial study, to understand participants’ subjective-meaning structures and their relationship to observable learning activities and outcomes (Ramsden, 1993). An interpretative approach and interviews helped me to inquire participants feelings and thoughts about virtual reality in my Trial Study. Research data were collected through open-ended questions in semi-structured interviews that posteriorly were analysed through iterative readings to produce an outcome space (Reid, 1997).