Performance Science Lab
Understanding the science and art of human performance
Our lab studies human performance and creativity in all its forms. We are particularly interested in how people learn to perform complex skills in high stakes environments, and how feedback and assessment support skill acquisition. We also explore how to optimize performance at the later stages of skill development. Much of our current work is focused on the education of health professionals, musicians and athletes.We bring an interdisciplinary approach to our research. Members of our lab are drawn from fields of study that span several different programs and departments, mostly (but not entirely) at McMaster University.Please note that we are not currently accepting any new undergraduate or graduate students.
Current Research Areas
Competency-based medical education
Competence by Design (CBD) represents a recent change initiative designed to improve medical training during residency. Through novel learning and assessment methods, the program promises better physicians and enhanced patient care. As the dominant training model in Canada, our lab is currently investigating its impact. Primarily, we are focused on its implementation in local residency programs.
Movement, Motor Control and Sensory feedback
Movement is often defined as a change in position or location. When purposeful and controlled, movement can advance technical performance, such as surgery. Within our lab, we focused on developing new technologies and algorithms that track limb segments, hands, and instruments. These technologies will be used to determine attributes of movement in different population. Additionally, some of our recent work is focused on processes that facilitate movement. For example, we are currently examining the role of sensory feedback.
Observational Learning
Observational learning represents one of the most common ways of learning in society. However, its role and potential benefits for surgical learning have yet to be understood. Within our lab, we’re currently examining the influence of observational learning within the surgical context. Particularly, we’re focused on how observation of others making mistakes can be optimized to improve the learning of surgical skills. By understanding more about the influence of observation on surgical skill learning, we can better understand how research from other fields applies to surgical skills. Additionally, we can create educational experiences that maximize the value of clinical encounters during residency.
Attention in Education
Classroom-based teaching sessions represent an important aspect of the postgraduate medical education curriculum, particularly as a variety of changes to the health care system have resulted in fewer clinical learning opportunities for trainees. While it is known that student attention tends to decline when more passive teaching approaches are used and the duration of a task increases, there has been very little research done to examine the role of mind wandering (i.e., task-unrelated thought) in professional education. We are currently using McMaster's LIVELab to conduct the first study to measure mind wandering during teaching sessions in medical education using electroencephalography. Elucidating a 'neural signature' of mind wandering during common educational tasks such as lectures will make a significant contribution to the field of cognitive science and education and help optimize the design and delivery of classroom-based teaching sessions in health professions education.
feedback and assessment in Sport and Surgery
We are developing and validating new methods of evaluating skill acquisition and learning in surgical trainees and elite athletes. We are also establishing indices of 'typical' performance.Evaluating operative performance is a focus of the lab as an offshoot of developing competency-based curricula for surgical skills. These evaluations consist of procedure-specific checklists and a series of global rating scales, the goal of which is to improve communication between educators and trainees regarding performance. We are currently helping to develop, implement, and evaluate these tools within orthopaedic surgery and other surgical training programs. More broadly, we are interested in understanding how assessment and feedback can be more effectively integrated into medical training. We have previously studied barriers to meaningful assessment and feedback in postgraduate medical training for orthopaedics and are currently undertaking work with respect to evaluation fatigue and faculty development around assessment.
GROUP DECISION MAKING IN MEDICAL EDUCATION
We are studying how groups work together to make promotion decisions in postgraduate medical education. We are particularly interested in improving processes around decision making for competence committees.Robust mechanisms to track resident progression through training are essential for postgraduate medical training programs transitioning to competency-based medical education. Competence committees are groups of faculty and occasionally residents tasked with guiding decision-making processes such as: promotion of residents to the next stage of learning; review, approval, and monitoring of individual learning plans; determination of residents’ readiness to write their licensing exams; and remediation for residents who are not progressing at a typical rate within their training program. We are currently using a variety of approaches, including interviews, naturalistic observation, and experimental research, to better understand how competence committees work together to make promotions decisions in postgraduate medical education.
machine learning in MEDICAL EDUCATION
We are exploring ways to use machine learning to reduce error rates, and improve the way that surgical trainees are taught how to interpret diagnostic images.Interpreting medical images is a difficult task. In addition to there being natural variability between patients, some imaging modalities are subject to large variance in viewing angle, high levels of image artifacts, and generate large volumes of data that must be read by a radiologist for each case. These difficulties manifest in high diagnostic error rates. We are interested in addressing these issues by using machine learning to develop medical education tools for medical trainees. Our goal is to develop three types of automatic feedback for trainees: 1) Highlighting which parts of an image are the most important to pay attention to, 2) visualizing what the machine learning model sees when it breaks down an image to make a diagnosis, and 3) explaining the diagnostic decision by describing how the various clinical and visual features weigh against one another.
Music Cognition
We are engaged in a number of studies in the LIVELab that are examining the neuroscience that underlies music perception, cognition, and performance.We are interested in various aspects of music cognition including pitch perception, how musicians learn to synchronise with each other, and how the acoustics of a performance venue change the way that musicians play. We also have a number of studies on the go that are looking at integrating technology in musical performances and exploring the relationship between performers and their audiences.
Sound Design
We are working on various projects related to improving our understanding of the role of sound in creative performance. Some projects are taking place in the livelab where we are investigating various phenomena such as the impact of the acoustical space on audience engagement, the impact of the acoustical space on aspects of musical performance, the sonification of biosignals, and perception of auditory motion. Some of this work is being used to inform sound designs in several professional theatrical productions taking place in South West Ontario.
Transition PointS IN MEDICAL TRAINING
We are looking at ways to facilitate the transition through the various stages of medical training.It is well known that transition points in medical education—for example, the transition from medical school to residency—present many new challenges for trainees. We are interested in exploring the implications that this may have on surgical education. Expanding on our earlier work on orthopaedic bootcamps at the University of Toronto, we are currently exploring the implementation and efficacy of a surgical skills bootcamp for all incoming surgical residents at McMaster University. In July 2018, we will implement the third iteration of the bootcamp and complete the two-year follow up period with the initial cohort, which will allow us to understand the long-term effects of a bootcamp program.In addition to the Surgical Foundations Bootcamp, we are also interested in exploring other transition points along the training continuum—for example from residency to fellowship, or from fellowship to a staff position—and expect this to be an exciting new avenue for future research.
Video-Based Training
We are examining how video-based training can be most effectively used in surgical and sports training.Given recent changes to the healthcare system, opportunities for residents to observe surgeries within the operating room have been decreasing. As a result, alternative teaching approaches are being implemented to supplement and enhance direct operating room observation. One such approach is computer-based video instruction. Previous work has shown that video-based training can be effective in teaching surgical trainees basic surgical skills such as suturing; however, little work has been done to examine its effectiveness with respect to teaching entire surgical procedures. Our lab is currently investigating if video-based training can be used as an effective visual and verbal teaching aid to help residents better understand procedures in orthopaedic surgery.
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