Jimmy Frerejean
Maastricht University, School of Health Professions Education
| Introduction: My name is Jimmy Frerejean, I was born in Maastricht and studied (Work & Organisational) Psychology at Maastricht University. I started my PhD in 2011 at the Open University in Heerlen and researched instructional design for information problem solving skills. After finishing my PhD, I returned to work at the School of Health Professions Education at Maastricht University where I have been an assistant professor for the past seven years. I also work at Maastricht University Medical Center, where I develop (national) programs for training simulation educators. I currently live in Maastricht with my girlfriend, but next year we’re moving to Veldwezelt, a small place right across the border in Belgium. |
| Research topics: My expertise lies in instructional design: the systematic design and development of courses and curricula, mainly in health professions education. I am particularly interested in (applications of) the Four-Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) model and simulation-based education. |
| Current research interest: I currently supervise five PhD candidates who are doing research on various topics, such as: – Development of a model for designing motivating blended learning programs – Effects of virtual patient design on cognitive load, affect, and performance – Lightening the supervision load of clinical supervising by replacing workplace learning with simulation-based learning – Simulating self-selected cases instead of programmed cases for teaching the ABCDE methodology – A literature study on factors affecting transfer of learning in simulation-based learning My own research projects focus on investigating faculty perspectives on simulation-based education and facilitators/barriers to its implementation. I’m also involved in a project investigating how the implementation of VR/AR methods can lighten the teaching load in a clinical setting. |
| Tips & tricks: I encountered two major pitfalls during my own PhD. First, my perfectionism very often got in the way. Acknowledge that you are learning and things you write will not be perfect. In fact, you will always look back and think things could have been done better. That’s a sign of growth. Second, I’ve often found myself in a spot where I needed help but didn’t ask for it because I thought I could figure it out by myself or didn’t want to bother anyone. Turns out people love to help, and if I had only asked more often, it would have saved me a lot of time and effort. |