Table 1
Types of scholarly failure, and distribution of articles published in the Perspectives on Medical Education (PME) special series on Failure/surprises (articles available from 2018–October 2019) presented by category of scholarly failure
|
Type of failure |
Description |
Exemplary papers from the failures/surprises section of PME |
|---|---|---|
|
Innovation-oriented failure |
Attempts are made to innovate, and it didn’t work or didn’t work as expected |
Reid et al., 2018 [25] Worden & Ait-Daoud Tiouririne, 2018 [26] Doll et al., 2018 [27] Wilkinson, 2018 [28] Cleland, 2018 [29] Gagliardi & Rudd, 2018 [30] Daniel et al., 2019 [31] |
|
Discovery-oriented failure |
A theory or hypothesis is tested with the explicit attempt to establish its generalizability and reach |
Norman, 2018 [32] |
|
Serendipitous failure |
A well-designed project generated unanticipated and unexpected findings |
Young, 2018 [22] Czepiel, 2018 [33] Kits et al., 2019 [34] Case et al., 2018 [35] Sokol et al., 2019 [36] |
Table 2
Strategies for better supporting and engaging with failed scholarly projects in health professions education (HPE) research and scholarship
|
Goal |
Strategies |
|---|---|
|
Purposefully engage with failure |
– Resist the temptation to file a failure away – Identify a colleague that could help you to talk through the study, and why it didn’t go as planned (i.e. a failure friend) – Determine what kind of failure it was, and whether there are any lessons to be learned – Consider presenting your project to a small research group or trusted group of colleagues to help determine whether a different theoretical lens could help explain why the project failed – Brainstorm as to whether the (now) productive failure would benefit others |
|
Publicly engage with failure |
– Resist the temptation to only share scholarly successes – Consider submission of a failed project that could be of value to the community to a growing number of venues – Consider developing a workshop that includes the lessons learned from designing an innovation, attempting a methodology, or executing a project that failed – If you are not new to HPE research, publicly discuss failed scholarly projects or consider keeping a public CV of failures [43] |
|
Humanize and normalize failure |
– If you are new to HPE research, know that failure in scholarship is typical – If you are coming from a clinical background, know that failure is the backbone of scholarship [44] – Find a ‘failure friend’—someone with whom you can discuss failed projects, and be sure to return the favour – Encourage, support, and facilitate brainstorming around a failed project – If needed, find some humour in the failed project, and consider contributing to something like Scienceconfessionals.com |