On the place of educational theory in the professional development of clinical educators

Different views exist about the training needs of new clinical educators and how they might be met. This contributes to the variably of early professional development offerings. One area of contention concerns the value of educational theory. A paper published in this journal questioned the importance of educational theory in delivering effective GP training and the authors claimed that they had been unable to find an explicit exploration of this issue. If we look to another field - teacher training - the place of educational theory has been thoroughly explored. Leading teacher educators have reported how unsuccessful the 'theory-first' approach has been in influencing teachers' practice and improving pupils' education. 'Realistic teacher education' is proposed as an alternative, which starts from student teachers' practical experiences and the needs and concerns that arise from them. This 'theory-later' approach has influenced novel forms of professional development for clinical educators, where theory is introduced if it is perceived as being relevant to the teaching and learning problems under discussion. This requires facilitators who are comfortable in working from practice to theory. Forsaking a 'theory-first' approach in foundational courses should not make educational theory disappear but prompts course designers to ask if it is better placed in subsequent professional development offerings when clinical educators have had some teaching experience.