In the realm of adult learning (graduate and postgraduate education), teaching and assessment strategies are usually an extension of undergraduate strategies without contextualizing the different needs of this learner community. Unlike undergraduate learners, graduate and postgraduate learners are a population of different skills and attributes carrying strong academic (professional) and social (personal) identities. To strengthen this relationship of personal and professional self, adult learner goes through the functional, enculturation, critical thinking, and emancipation stages. While believing in relevance to their practice, they capitalize on their prior knowledge and bring complexity to the learning context using their varied experiences and needs. Despite years of research into “andragogy” and interesting findings on the differences in learning (e.g. attention, working memory, executive function, etc) in an ageing adult brain, it is harder to make any claim about dramatically different teaching and learning needs of adult learners. Additionally, there is an inadequacy of research tapping into the effectiveness of collaborative, flexible, self-directed and reflective learning, and, formative, competency-based assessment in this learner population.

To strengthen healthcare systems, we aim to curate a research collection of articles considering teaching and assessment strategies for adult learners, to create a holistic and comprehensive snapshot of the preferences and needs of adults in the context of postgraduate health professions education.

This article collection lead will focus on the studies exploring innovative learning and assessment strategies within the context of graduate and postgraduate health professions education. This area will also include the integration of AI and competency-based education to address the intricacies associated with graduate and postgraduate degrees, particularly in nursing, medicine, allied health, physiotherapy, dental, and interdisciplinary teams. With a specific emphasis on adult learners, the contributions should seek to identify effective pedagogical approaches tailored to the unique learner characteristics and challenges posed by diverse healthcare disciplines. We also aim to consider the limited availability of educational collections in this domain and provide insights that will be beneficial for the potential audience, including educators, program developers, and practitioners.

Manuscript submissions must focus on graduate and postgraduate health professions education, and could consider such themes as (for example, but not limited to):
• Investigation of the needs and preferences of adult (graduate and postgraduate) learners, as they differ from undergraduates.
• Novel teaching and assessment strategies for adult learners, or assessment of the effectiveness of current strategies. Applications of AI and other new technologies in graduate and postgraduate education.
• Differences in effective pedagogical approaches across graduate and postgraduate education in diverse healthcare disciplines.
• Exploration of educational strategies that align with the age-related changes in neurophysiological and cognitive profiles of adults. The educational strategies may include adaptive technologies, cognitive training interventions, or teaching and learning approaches.

We welcome original research, systematic reviews, policy and practice reviews, hypothesis and theory, perspectives, clinical trials, community case studies, curriculum instruction and pedagogy, data report and brief research report specific to the context of this collection. We don’t accept opinion and commentary manuscripts.

Topic Editor Nabil Zary has received research grants from Pfizer and GE Healthcare - independent medical education grants with no involvement from the funders. All other Topic Editors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Frontiers in Medicine

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