MEREDITH YOUNG, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Sciences Education at McGill University. She earned her PhD in cognitive psychology from McMaster University studying how individuals (both individuals with and without medical expertise) think through a variety of complex problems in medicine. More specifically, she studied the intersection of more intuitive decision-making and more structured, rule-based reasoning.
Her current work examines how problems get solved in Health Professions Education, and the assumptions that underpin what we think makes a good solution. She explores this topic in three main areas: 1) issues related to reasoning or decision making in health, 2) issues of validity and assessment in Health Professions Education (HPE), 3) issues related to the ways we conduct research in Health Professions Education. Her work aims to make our understandings of key concepts in HPE more explicit in order to support productive dialogue to better support teaching, assessment, and scholarly practices. For example, key constructs such as clinical reasoning can be represented in a variety of ways - from diagnostic accuracy, situational awareness, judgment, to critical thinking - and each of these conceptualizations align with different teaching, assessment, and scholarly practices. In order to better support educational, assessment, and scholarly practices, complex concepts and underlying assumptions must be clarified and critically examined in order to support productive and constructive academic dialogue.
Professor Young was trained in experimental cognitive psychology and quantitative approaches to research but works with a variety of methodological approaches with a little help from her friends.
Current research interests: clinical reasoning, assessment and validity, metascholarship, health professions education
E-mail: meredith.young [at] mcgill.ca
