Paradigms unfolded - developing, validating, and evaluating the Medical Education e-Professionalism framework from a...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education Research
• Digital Health Ethics
• Research Methodology

Background:

• A strong research design requires alignment between the research paradigm and the researcher's ontological and epistemological beliefs.
• The Medical Education e-Professionalism (MEeP) framework aims to help Health Care Professionals (HCPs) maintain professionalism in the digital realm.
• Previous publications on the MEeP framework lacked detailed discussion of the underlying research paradigms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an overview of research paradigm choices in the development of the MEeP framework.
• To enhance the transparency of the MEeP framework's research design, methods, data collection, and analysis.
• To detail the philosophical approach and rationale for selecting pragmatism as the research paradigm.

Main Methods:

• Literature review on research paradigms and e-professionalism.
• Discussion of research design, methods, data collection, and analysis within the MEeP framework context.
• Philosophical exploration of paradigm selection, specifically advocating for pragmatism.

Main Results:

• The study elucidates the paradigm selection process for the MEeP framework.
• It highlights the importance of transparency in research methodology for medical education studies.
• Pragmatism is presented as a suitable paradigm for guiding robust research designs in e-professionalism.

Conclusions:

• The detailed discussion of the paradigm approach strengthens the MEeP framework's research foundation.
• Understanding the philosophical underpinnings enhances the credibility and reproducibility of research in medical education.
• This work serves as a guide for future research designs and methodological choices in digital professionalism studies.