Development of the EVIBEC Learning Outcomes Framework to support the delivery of evidence-based practice curricula in health care professional programmes: a Codesign Approach

Background: All healthcare professional education programmes must adopt a systematic approach towards ensuring graduates achieve the competencies required to be an evidence-based practitioner. While a list of competencies for evidence-based practice exist, health care educators continue to struggle with effectively integrating these competencies into existing curriculum. The purpose of this project was to develop an open access cross-discipline, learning outcomes framework to support educators in integrating the teaching, learning and assessment required to ensure all graduates of health care professional programmes can achieve the necessary evidence-based practice competencies. Methods An interdisciplinary project team of 7 health care professions educators and a librarian completed a review of the health professions literature on the teaching and assessment of evidence-based practice. The literature coupled with the teams’ collective experiences in health professions evidence-based education and research were used to identify relevant teaching, learning and research frameworks to inform the project design. The guide and toolkit for experience-based co-design developed by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement was adopted for this study. A four-step approach involving three online interactive and participatory co-design workshops and a national stakeholder validation workshop was designed. Students (n = 33), faculty (n = 12), and clinical educators (n = 15) contributed to the development and validation of the EVIBEC learning outcomes framework through this co-design approach. Results Through a rigorous, systematic co-design process the EVIBEC Learning Outcomes Framework was developed. This framework consists of a series of student-centred learning outcomes, aligned to EBP competencies, classified according to the 5 As of EBP and mapped to the cognitive levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Associated learning activities for each step of EBP are suggested. Conclusions Co-design was an effective method to develop a learning outcomes framework and associated learning activities to support integration and delivery of evidence-based practice across health care professions education programmes. Furthermore, outcomes from the co-design workshops supported the use of a spiral curriculum design where knowledge and skills are introduced and revisited at increasing levels of complexity over time coupled with the use of active learning and assessment activities to deliver evidence-based practice curriculum.