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Table 4 Aspects influencing seminar learning emerging from the focus groups

From: Teachers’ perceptions of aspects affecting seminar learning: a qualitative study

Themes

Key aspects

Sub aspects

Teacher

Seminar Teacher

• Teacher role and involvement in education in general (full time teacher vs. clinician with educational tasks)

• Pedagogical skills/pedagogical degree

• Interpersonal skills

• Subject knowledge

• Role of the teacher in a seminar

• Experience in facilitating seminars

• Ownership of the seminar

• Collaboration with other course teachers

• Being motivated for seminar teaching

• Amount of time for seminar preparation

• Work load

Student

Students

• Student goals

• Student roles

• Student motivation

• Student behaviour

• Student learning styles

• Student collaboration skills

• Student time management skills

Preparation

• Materials (Clarity, Amount, Difficulty, Guiding preparation questions, Type)

• Preparation time

• Suitability of preparation materials for seminar

• Scheduling of seminars in relation to other educational methods & assessment

• Sanctions for not preparing (Group, Teacher)

• Teacher’s expectations of students

• Student characteristics (Motivation, Prior Knowledge, Interest in subject, Extra-curricular activities)

Group functioning

• Size

• Group composition

• Amount of interaction

• Safe learning climate (continuity of teacher-student group combinations; respect)

• Facilitating method used within seminar

• Room (physical space, seating arrangement)

 

Seminar goals and content

• General seminar goals (clarity)

 

• Specific seminar learning objectives (clarity)

 

• Suitability of subject for seminar

 

• Role of seminar in course

Organisation

• Relation and integration of different seminars in a course

• Integration within seminars

• Availability of seminar materials

• Quality and type of seminar questions (provoking discussion, clinically relevant, academically challenging)

• Number of seminar questions

Course schedule and coherence

• Sequence and coherence of different educational methods

• Distribution of contact time over the course

• Amount of contact time per day

• Planning of the assessment

• Efficient planning of number of seminars per teacher (<3-5)

• Distribution of time of teaching staff between patient care, research and teaching

Facilities

• Availability of markers & whiteboard

• Availability of audio-visual materials

• Climate & Light

• Seating arrangement