Data for "A mixed methods study to explore the process of clinical reasoning employed by clinical students during primary clinical assessments"

This study employed a convergent mixed methods design (4), utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the clinical reasoning process used by final year medical and physician associate (PA) students during Single Best Answer (SBA) questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE). These two groups were used as both have a medical model of education.To ensure the validity and expert grounding of the study questions, the research commenced with a Nominal Group Technique (NGT) consensus process (5). The NGT aimed to define the key questions that would form the basis of the quantitative Likert scale items and the qualitative focus group interviews, drawing upon the concept framework of clinical reasoning developed in the narrative review.An expert group of six members, including the primary researcher and an independent facilitator, was recruited aiming for a balance of views and institutional geography.The NGT was conducted remotely using online video conferencing and collaborative Google Sheets (6) for data gathering, ensuring anonymity during the initial silent question generation phase. Participants were provided with a condensed version of the narrative review, focusing on the concept framework, to ensure clarity of the underpinning ideas.During the question generation stage, 68 initial questions were put forward. These were grouped using agreed topic tags (table 1), based on the concept framework, which also served as the initial coding framework for thematic analysis. Following review and removal of duplicates, 41 questions proceeded to the ranking stage.The final output was a set of ten agreed questions (table 2). These questions were adapted slightly for the two arms of the study. The quantitative questions used a 10-point Likert scale (never–always), while the qualitative questions were open ended to promote further consideration of the concepts.Data collection was conducted across three different UK university sites to improve validity. The study targeted final year medical and physician associate (PA) students. Recruitment was via email invite from the local education teams and participation entirely voluntary.The quantitative component captured data contemporaneously with students undertaking SBA and OSCE assessments and then immediately answering the study questions using an online form completed on personal electronic devices under exam conditions.Qualitative Data Capture was via seven face-to-face focus groups across the three sites with transcripts produced by the researcher through immersion and editing of an initial automated transcript.The specific datasets are available her for additional analysis as apropriate.Ethics was granted by the University of Sheffield, reference 044729