China Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal Club

Language Disorders Clinical Trial

— COG-JOCS  

Official title:

An English Language Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal Club to Improve Medical English in China: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01844609
• Other study ID #: 42338
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: April 29, 2013
• Last updated: October 24, 2013
• Start date: May 2013
• Est. completion date: July 2013

Study information

• Verified date: October 2013
• Source: Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if an intensive journal club based on articles and materials provided on the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology Website improves written and spoken comprehension of medical English in a population of Chinese medical professionals.

Description:

This will be a randomized educational trial of an intensive journal club compared to a self study journal club (1:1 randomization). Randomization will take place after baseline.

The population will consist of 50 medical professionals at Heilongjiang University in Harbin China, who agree to participate in an 8 week educational intervention.

This study will assess the impact of applying English for Specific Purposes(ESP) pedagogy to foreign medical education and specifically evaluate learning in the field of obstetrics and gynecology(Ob-Gyn). ESP is a subdivision of a wider field, Language for Specific Purposes(LSP), defined as the area of inquiry and practice in the development of language programs for people who need a language to meet a predictable range of communicative needs. ESP emphasizes teaching language in context and designs a curriculum around the results of a needs assessment, to more accurately determine which language skills are of priority: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Part of the theory behind ESP suggests that being able to use the vocabulary and structures that students learn in a meaningful context reinforces what is taught and increases motivation. Further, findings from a study by Okamura (2006) that examined how learners succeed in mastering scientific discourse in English showed that they focused on reading academic texts in their field to learn typical writing patterns. This is as opposed to junior learners who focused on mastering the English language by reading English texts written by authors from a breadth of fields. This application of ESP thus reflects how content-specific source articles could serve as rhetorical models and suggests that source articles are able to mediate scholarly writing and learning within the zone of proximal developmental; that is, learners are simultaneously gaining new content knowledge while increasing their skill base.

The proposed intervention is to design an ESP curriculum for medical professionals, specifically Ob-Gyn physicians and researchers at a Chinese Medical University, based on the journal club format and source articles. The study will quantitatively assess the impact of this model on student's ESP language comprehension as well as determine the necessity of the traditional "facilitator" role for a journal club whose purpose is to foster language literacy in non-English speaking universities.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 50
• Est. completion date: July 2013
• Est. primary completion date: July 2013
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Chinese medical professional

Exclusion Criteria:

• English speaking fluency

• Non-Chinese speaking medical professional

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Health Services Research

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Language Disorders

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Self Study Journal Club
This Self Study Journal Club will read articles and prepare written answers to the study questions on their own time. The participants will read 24 articles; 12 gynecology and 12 obstetrics, based on monthly journal clubs available online at the Obstetrics and Gynecology website. The first and last article will serve as a basis for the oral and written exam in which they will be tested on comprehension, verbal and written Medical English.
• Intensive Journal Club
This Intensive Journal Club will read articles and prepare written answers to the study questions along with a fluent English speaker. The participants will read 24 articles; 12 gynecology and 12 obstetrics, based on monthly journal clubs available online at the Obstetrics and Gynecology website. Participants will prepare oral presentations of the studies and answers to the study questions. They will have interactive sessions with this fluent English speaking monitor 3 times a week, one hour sessions for 8 weeks. The first and last article will serve as a basis for the oral and written exam in which they will be tested on comprehension, verbal and written Medical English.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
China	First Affiliated Hospital Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine	Harbin
United States	Penn State Hershey Medical Center	Hershey	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Milton S. Hershey Medical Center	First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang Chinese Medicine University

Countries where clinical trial is conducted

United States,  China, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Change in score from baseline on a 30 question multiple choice exam (questions and answers will be read to the participants) based on APGO-CREOGH shelf exams.		Baseline to 8 weeks	No
Secondary	Change in score from baseline on a written (short answer) exam and on an oral exam.		Baseline to 8 weeks	No