Using critical consciousness to inform health professions education: A&nbsp;literature review

Mark Halman; Lindsay Baker; Stella Ng

doi:10.1007/S40037-016-0324-Y

Figures & Tables

Flowchart of literature search and article selection process from a critical review of the literature on critical consciousness/critical pedagogy published before May 2014

Table 1

Articles included in our review

First author	Year	Journal	Predominant Themes in articles
First author	Year	Journal	Appreciating context	Illuminating power structures	Moving beyond procedural	Enacting reflection	Promoting equity and social justice
Andre [32]	1999	Contemporary Nurse		x
Bowman [12]	1995	Nurse Education Today	x				x
Chiesa [26]	2007	International Nursing Review	x				x
Clare [13]	1993	Nurse Education Today		x		x
Donetto [18]	2012	British Journal of Sociology of Education			x
Fleming [14]	2007	Health Education Research				x
Getzlaf [24]	2010	International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship				x
Grace [15]	2013	Advances in Nursing Science			x
Hanson [41]	2011	Journal of Studies in International Education			x		x
Harden [16]	1996	Nurse Education Today		x
Hartrick [19]	1998	Journal of Nursing Education		x	x
Hawks [20]	1992	Journal of Advanced Nursing		x		x
Hedin [29]	1987	International Journal of Nursing Studies		x	x
Hezekiah [21]	1993	Journal of Nursing Education		x		x
Ironside [39]	2001	Advances in Nursing Science			x		x
Kumagai [30]	2007	Medical Teacher			x		x
Kumagai [1]	2009	Academic Medicine			x		x
Liimatainen [34]	2001	Journal of Advanced Nursing				x
Mabhala [37]	2013	International Journal for Equity in Health	x				x
McDowell [37]	2012	Journal of Marital and Family Therapy	x			x
Mikol [40]	2005	Nursing Education Perspectives	x		x
Milligan [22]	1995	Nurse Education Today			x
Perron [23]	2010	Advances in Nursing Science		x
Pitner [17]	2005	American Journal of Orthopsychiatry	x	x
Platt [27]	2012	Journal of Marital and Family Therapy	x
Racine [28]	2012	Journal of Transcultural Nursing					x
Reid [33]	2011	Education for Health		x			x
Ross [31]	2011	Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions				x	x
Schiff [25]	2012	Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Public Health					x
Sharples [38]	2013	Nursing Education Today		x

Table 2

Common practices of a critical pedagogy

Common practice	Rationale and Description	Examples
Promote authentic dialogue	Dialogue promotes the authentic exchange of ideas. It moves beyond discussion. It begins in a safe learning space and invites learners to openly share their experiences without concern for judgment	[22, 35]
Recognize the value of everyone in the room	Faculty are not the authority on the learning experience in these situations because they are not the authority on the lived experience of the learner or the patient. The value of everyone in the room is recognized and learners are experts of their own expertise. Taking such a position creates a supportive and egalitarian atmosphere	[17, 39]
Share and invite stories	Learners can acquire personal knowledge through the narrative of people who experience health and healthcare. This knowledge differs from biomedical forms and purposes of knowledge, and matters to critical consciousness. Personal narratives are shared with learners and patients and other relevant individuals are invited to share their stories	[1, 20, 24, 37]
Question the status quo	Much of what we do in healthcare is because we have always done it that way and therefore we take it for granted – we’ve stopped ‘seeing it.’ Learners bring fresh views; if learners are empowered to ask questions, we may enable more questioning and transforming of the status quo. Ask learners why we do things the way we do them, and how our current approach may be perpetuating inequity or injustice	[40, 41]
Create cognitive disequilibrium	Cognitive disequilibrium refers to a state of cognitive imbalance. We experience such a state when encountering information that requires us to develop new schema or accommodate existing schema. Facilitate encounters with the unfamiliar for learners in order to stimulate the examination of their values and beliefs	[1, 31]
Challenge the power hierarchy	Power dynamics are inherent in health professions education and influence what is safe, and what is possible for learners to say and do. Acknowledge this power hierarchy and actively challenge it	[1, 23, 29, 39]

Using critical consciousness to inform health professions education: A literature review

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1

Table 1

Table 2

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