Interview with Andrew W. Phillips, MD, MEd, Steven James Durning, MD, PhD and Anthony R. Artino, Jr., PhD

Why did you feel that it was important to write Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education?  What does your publication add to the field?  

There are several tomes on survey methods already published that go into excellent detail on one or more parts of the survey-design process, or that dive deeply into the theory behind various decisions. But none of these books breaks the process down into a tangible series of steps that makes it possible for the novice survey designer to conduct a proper survey from start to finish. Our book makes high-quality survey methodology approachable to everyone and focuses on surveys in health professions education, where approximately half of all original research currently uses a survey method. 

What is the most exciting aspect of Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education?  What chapter or topic covered in the new edition are you most excited about?  

The book makes use of simple examples for explanations but also raises and addresses complexities that arise in the real practice of surveying. Using the “Voice of Experience” call-out boxes, the authors and editors combine their decades of experience in the field to share problems they have faced and how they solved them so readers do not have to reinvent the wheel. Rather than hide our misadventures, we have highlighted and resolved them for readers. Each step (chapter) also concludes with a checklist to ensure all aspects of the survey method are considered by the survey authors. From start to finish, the book is meant to be extraordinarily practical.

Who will find the greatest value from Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education and why?  

Although the examples are in the field of health professions education, survey designers from any field will find great value in this book for its practicality. It is an excellent introduction for those unfamiliar with formal survey methodology but also a helpful reference for experienced survey designers because of the checklists and extensive tables and references.

What new ideas, practices, or procedures do you hope your readers take away from Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education?  

Broadly, our goal is to raise the quality of survey methods in health professions education (HPE). Our prior work found that approximately half of recently published surveys in major HPE journals did not report a response rate, and over 90% broke at least one commonly accepted best practice for survey design. Our book offers practical information on what is expected for, and how to deliver, a high-quality survey. 

What problem do you hope the future generation of your specialty will be able to solve?  

Response rates are a worsening problem, and poor-quality surveys exacerbate this issue. We hope our book will help future generations solve the problems of inadequate survey quality and low response rates.

Is there anything else about Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education you’d like to say?  

Mark Twain is quoted as writing “I apologize for such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.” In contrast, we went to great lengths to make our book short, intentionally. We cut it down to the essentials and present them in bite-size, practical explanations and instructions without abridging central tenets of the process. Where tangential and controversial issues arise, we provide a summary of opposing views with recommendations and key references for interested readers to dive more deeply if they wish (e.g., whether Likert-type questions should be analyzed as interval or ordinal data). Our book is flush with tables listing pros and cons for the various decisions required for a good survey, and we identify best practices based on evidence wherever they exist from across all fields that use survey methods. We hope readers will find our book to be one of their “go-to references” that has dog-eared and highlighted pages with the honored position of the bookshelf just above the computer monitor.  

Dr. Phillips is a former junior high teacher, now emergency medicine and critical care physician with a master’s degree in education who is an adjunct assistant professor at Uniformed Services University and the editor-in-chief of EM Coach, an asynchronous learning platform for emergency medicine.  

Dr. Durning is a general internist with a PhD in Health Professions Education. He is a professor and vice chair for the Department of Medicine, and he is the founding director of the Uniformed Services University’s Center for Health Professions Education. He has served as an editor for several peer-reviewed journals in health professions education (HPE) and he has published over 350 peer reviewed manuscripts in HPE.  

Dr. Artino is PhD-trained educational researcher and professor of health and human function at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He also serves on the editorial review boards of several peer-reviewed journals in health professions education.    

Get your copy of Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education, 1st Edition here!