Perspectives of the cohort of health professionals in the WiSDOM study on the learning environment, transformation, and social accountability at a South African University

BACKGROUND: The dearth of empirical research on transformative health professions education informed this study to examine the factors that influence the perspectives of the cohort of health professionals in the WiSDOM study on the learning environment, transformation, and social accountability at a South African university. METHODS: WiSDOM, a prospective longitudinal cohort study, consists of eight health professional groups: clinical associates, dentists, doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, oral hygienists, pharmacists, and physiotherapists. At study inception in 2017, participants completed a self-administered questionnaire that included four domains of selection criteria (6 items); the learning environment (5 items); redress and transformation (8 items); and social accountability (5 items). In the analysis, we, rescaled the original Likert scoring of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) to a new scale ranging from 0–10. We calculated the mean scores for each item and across items for the four domains, with low scores (0.00-1.99) classified as poor and high scores (8.00–10.00) as excellent. We used multiple linear regression analysis to compare the mean scores, while adjusting for different socio-demographiccharacteristics. RESULTS: The mean age of the 501 eligible participants was 24.1 years; the majority female (72.9%), 45.3% self-identified as Black African; and 12.2% were born in a rural area. The domains of selection criteria and redress and transformation obtained mean scores of 5.4 and 5.3 out of 10 respectively, while social accountability and the learning environment obtained mean scores of 6.1 and 7.4 out of 10 respectively. Self-identified race influenced the overall mean scores of selection criteria, redress and transformation, and social accountability (p < 0.001). Rural birth influenced the perceptions on selection criteria, redress and transformation (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The results suggest the need to create inclusive learning environments that foreground redress, transformation, and social accountability, while advancing the discourse on decolonised health sciences education.