iMERR – Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam
iMERR – the Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam – conducts high-quality scientific research to improve health professions education and support evidence-informed educational innovation. Based at Erasmus MC, we integrate expertise from cognitive psychology, educational science, and clinical medicine to study how health professionals learn, reason, and are trained.
Our focus is to improve how clinicians are trained to deliver high-quality care while adapting to ongoing changes in clinical practice, such as the need for efficient education and the increased use of technology in both education and practice. This requires integration across different areas and a multidisciplinary research approach spanning selection, clinical reasoning, clinical skills, assessment, and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence.
Throughout, we aim to understand the underlying cognitive and educational processes that drive learning and performance. iMERR collaborates closely with teachers, program directors, and policymakers at Erasmus MC and maintains an international network of research partners.
Aims
Our research is aimed at improving health professions education across the full educational continuum – from the selection of students to the continuing development of practising clinicians.
We aim to understand how health professionals learn, reason, and perform, and translate that evidence into educational innovation and policy. Specifically, we aim to better understand the clinical reasoning process in contemporary education and practice to ensure that we train clinicians who make accurate, safe decisions. We aim to advance the understanding of how clinical skills are acquired and how simulation and technology-enhanced learning can best support that process. We advance the science of assessment by developing and validating tools that capture competence fairly and meaningfully, including using physiological measures such as eye-tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We aim to ensure that selection and assessment policies are fair and support student performance. Finally, we aim to integrate artificial intelligence in clinical reasoning education and practice, equipping both learners and educators to work with AI tools critically and responsibly.
Research priorities
The five research priorities of iMERR are not isolated research lines but interconnected areas of expertise that we deliberately combine. In practice, our research projects often span multiple priorities, bringing together different methods and perspectives to address complex questions in health professions education:
- Clinical Reasoning
- Understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying clinical diagnosis, and how students and clinicians (further) develop their clinical reasoning skills.
- Clinical Skills
- Investigate how students and trainees acquire procedural and diagnostic skills, and how they skills can be more effectively developed and transfer to clinical practice.
- Assessment
- Advance the development and validation of assessment instruments and policies across the educational trajectory.
- Physiological Measures
- Use objective physiological measurement methods – including eye-tracking, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and cardiac measures to enable more valid and informative assessment and further understand the underlying cognitive processes.
- Artificial Intelligence
- Examine how AI alters education and practice and develop and evaluate evidence-based education that prepares students and clinicians to use AI safely, critically, and effectively.
Staff
Dario Fernandes
Assistent professor
Dario Fernandes on LinkedInJustine Staal
Assistent professor
Justine Staal on LinkedInAndrea Woltman
Hoogleraar
Andrea Woltman on LinkedInLaura Zwaan
Associate professor
Laura Zwaan on LinkedIn