Editorial: Do We Have a Community of Inquiry?

Scientific research requires a fair share of common sense and industry in collecting and explaining data. Above all, it requires a community of people who explore similar questions, share their knowledge, and develop common tools and language. I invite you to read the lists of authors in this issue of JRIPE as part of the larger community of research in interprofessional practice and education (IPE). What forges the connection between these authors is not time or space, but the common field of IPE inquiry: the need to understand change in collaborative practice, the context of change, and how effective IPE can be in changing student attitudes, learning, or behaviour. Just et al. offer the first entry with a randomized controlled trial assessing behaviour change among medical and nursing students [1]. Their study—a controlled experiment in a simulated setting—goes beyond self-reported perceptions of change. Instead, they develop and examine specific hypotheses on expected behavioural performance with a clear link to the definition of IPE and its core competencies. The result is a rigorous study that shows that generating empirical evidence on the behavioural effects of IPE is not only possible, but that it can also be elegantly inspired. With Grymonpre et al., we move to a quasi-experimental research design [2]. Using Mezirow’s transformative learning theory [3], the study underlines the value of mixed methods, the complementarity of qualitative and quantitative data, and the importance of adequate sample size. Two pre-experimental studies complete this series of quantitative analyses. Shrader et al., using a pre-post test design, report on a model of interprofessional student service-learning and how it may improve or sustain positive attitudes toward teamwork and professional roles [4]. Next, Guitard et al., using a singlegroup post-test-only design, go beyond students’ attitudes to assess students’ interprofessional learning in a rehabilitation clinical placement. The authors illustrate a commendable effort to assess interprofessional learning and the promise of the Personal Reflective Tool that requires further elaboration and testing [5]. Qualitative analyses in this issue examine change and the context of change. Sterrett points to what may constitute effective ingredients for an interprofessional community of practice among fellowship students [6]. Next, King et al., through a comparative exploration of two different communities of professionals, lead us in a search for clues on what an effective learning workplace can look like [7]. Finally, Gotlib et al., using an ethnographic investigation of a primary-care setting [8], report that change moves from first-order to second-order change: from what proJournal of Research in Interprofessional Practice and Education

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.