Research Plan
- Assessments development will also include the initial stages of design and development for the Trainee Portal
- 'Assessments' refers to the progression reviews carried out at least annually, but may be more often, and not to the workplace-based assessments that are managed on the various ePortfolios
- The assessments function will support reviews across medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and healthcare sciences
Objectives
6 local teams:
- East Midlands
- Kent, Surrey & Sussex
- North East
- South West
- Thames Valley
- Yorkshire and the Humber
(Others to be substituted if no availability with initial list - to total of 6 for Alpha)
Research context
It's important to acknowledge that some of theses people/teams have been involved in previous research during Discovery and undertaken by Angelita during her business process mapping. Please refer to User Research Spreadsheet for details.
Objectives
To understand from users' perspective:
- who does what in the revalidation process
- the detail of the tasks they perform for revalidation (what, why, where, how)
- their experience of the process - what's good and what's not
- what do they need from a system to support the process
Methods
Contextual Enquiry
- Sitting with an administrator and observing what they do
- Discussing observations, issues and ideas as they arise
- Duration as long as the task takes but minimise disruption of work
- Feedback anonymised – issues will be aggregated and generalised in project outputs e.g. user journeys and personas
Interviews
- Structured but informal interviews to talk through processes (e.g. revalidation) and discuss any issues and ideas
- May be 1-2-1 or include more than one person working within a team (not more than 2 preferred, max 3)
- Usually last about 1 hour
- Feedback anonymised – issues will be aggregated and generalised in project outputs e.g. user journeys and personas
Workshops
- Group of colleagues – either working in similar roles or representing users from end to end of the process
- Work together to create a common view of process pain points and opportunities
- Feedback can be attributed to whole workshop and not to individuals
Model research schedule - 1-2 days with local team, depending on numbers, availability and location
Can be flexible depending on availability, but should generally start with an observation session with a validation officer/manager who actually carries out the tasks involved in administering the process. Whether we use 1-2-1 or workshops depends to a certain extent on the numbers of people available/willing to participate, but I'd suggest we stick to 1-2-1 (or 1-2-2) for the first couple of local teams at least, and move on to workshops if it feels like we're getting a consensus that can be played back to bigger groups (and as we develop assets that can be used as workshop stimulus).
| What | Who do we need at this session | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Contextual Enquiry (c. 2hrs?) | Validation officer/manager who actually undertakes the tasks required for revalidation (RV1-11) in summary:
| If these tasks are carried out by different roles, observation to be with each of these roles individually e.g. if a validation officer is responsible for preliminary checks but a separate person/team responsible for gathering and considering evidence on concerns, then we'd like to go through the part of the process with both of these people idividually. |
Depth interviews (3 x 1hr) | 2 or 3 1-2-1 interviews with other people who perform the role as above. 1-2-1 Interview with a validation manager if they are not covered in the Contextual Enquiry. | As above, need to cover different roles where these are involved (e.g. 1 from Validation team, 1 from Specialty team) |
Interview (ideally 1hr but we'll take what we can get! | 1-2-1 with Responsible Officer | This will be to understand his/her experience of the process, including audit/reporting requirements, plus wider insight into working practices (e.g. self service or supported), digital take-up etc NB - we may not be able to speak to RO in every local team, but will be happy to talk to as many as we can |
Depth interviews 1hr | 1-2-1 with trainee | Number of trainees depends on schedule - if visit is spread across 2 days this can be increased |