Teaching midwifery students A model for transferring epistemology to midwifery practice

1. Teachingmidwifery students A model for transferring epistemology to midwifery practice Ingrid Jepsen, Midwife, lecturer, University College Northern Denmark, the midwiferydepartment

2. Workshop topic Students attitude… What is epistemology…? and what’s the use of it for a midwife? The workshop will illustrate how we can teach epistemology in the beginning of the midwifery study

3. What is epistemology? Epistemology: • Branch of philosophy concerned with nature and origin of knowledge. Epistemology asks question “How do we know what we know?” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistemology To get an understanding of how is it possible to know something from different perspectives, we have chosen Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences as the rough, but basic starting point.

4. What do we do? Midwifery students areintroduced to naturalscience, humanities and social sciences by three different teachers. (2 lessons for each “science”).

5. What do we do next? Then we make work-shop (3 x 45 min): • To illustrate the difference between the sciences • To show howdifferentscientificperspectivescanmakesense in relation to clinicalpractice • To show what sort of questions may be asked within each scientific perspective

6. The plan for the workshop Students receive workshop questions one day before the workshop Workshop: Students are first divided into 3 groups: > natural science > humanities > social science Each group has a teacher as a supervisor (the teacher who taught either natural science, humanities or social science) Each group is then told to watch a video focusing on their specific scientific perspective (and the questions). The students watch the video (45 min)

7. Group work • Together with the 3 teachers/ supervisors, the class splits into 3 groups to work with the questions according to their ”science” (45 min) • Finally, the students prepare and make presentations for some of the other students and one teacher. - and they share and discuss their answers (45 min)

8. And now you are going to try it!

9. What are we going to do together? • “Count to nine” to get your group allocation Number 1-3 Natural science Number 4-6 Humanities Number 7-9 Social science • Together with the questions for the video, you get a handout with brief information about the general characteristics of the chosen science • Watch the video all together • Answer the questions in groups (together with the teacher/supervisor) • Group presentations: You present your answers to the questions to some of your colleagues

10. What is naturalscience, humanities and social sciences? (Holm AB, Philosophy of science, 2013, Frederiksberg, samfundslitteratur.) Natural science • Scientific knowledge is acquired through systematic gathering of empirical data; and only theories derived from such data can be considered scientific (positivism) • Scientifically true theories are verifiable • Only empirical and measurable “things” count • Based on natural sciences • Normativity • Neutrality, unprejudiced researcher • Objectivism, an object is the sum of our sensory perception of it • Observations: thorough, systematic, logically stringent, aimed at a particular target, generalizations

11. What is naturalscience, humanities and social sciences? (Holm AB, Philosophy of science, 2013, Frederiksberg, samfundslitteratur.) Humanities • All expressions of human life are of interests to the humanities • The interpretative way of human sciences in principle constitutes a never-ending process • Working with human beings, there are no correct answers and there is no absolute truth • Understanding; yet, complete understanding will never be reached • The researcher works within a framework of understanding • More dialogue than experiments and observation • Individuality in focus • Experiences are in focus • Knowledge ‘in depth’ and not ‘in general’

12. What is naturalscience, humanities and social sciences? (Holm AB, Philosophy of science, 2013, Frederiksberg, samfundslitteratur.) Social sciences Social sciences must be based on an ide of what a society is and what characterizes one’s social interaction according to • Social life • Family • Network Problems and methods vary greatly depending on which sociologist you are inspired by: • - Study social facts not individuals: religion, morals, language (Durkheim) • - Class society, positions, capitalism, power struggles and conflicts of interests (Marx) • - Individual behaviour (motives)(Weber) Being critical of the ethical or political consequences of science is important. The researcher must be critical of the role research plays in society • Social sciences use different research methods

13. Questions to answer in groups • Find examples in the video representing your scientific perspective • If you were interested in knowing more, what kind of questions would you ask from your ”scientific” perspective? • Choose one of your questions • What kind of study/research/methods would you choose to get answers to your question? • Try to find some arguments for the truths concerning knowledge claimed to exist within your “your science” or discuss whether there is a truth? • What is the use of your chosen research/investigation?