From competency transfer to situated enactment: an interpretive explanatory model of the transition from interprofessional education to collaborative practice.

Abstract

Interprofessional education (IPE) is often positioned as preparation for interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP), yet how students learn to enact IPCP as they move from online IPE to community-based practice remains insufficiently understood. This instrumental qualitative case study examined undergraduate health professions students' learning within an IPE program at a Colombian university that connected online modules with rural community-based primary care. Data were collected between October 2024 and March 2025 from students in medicine, psychology, physiotherapy, and speech therapy through nine semi-structured interviews, one focus group, one dyadic interview, and two non-participant observations during rural fieldwork. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis followed by interpretive synthesis. Three themes were identified: understanding collaborative practice in healthcare; barriers to learning collaborative practice; and situated conditions supporting collaborative learning. Together, these themes generated an explanatory model of the IPE-IPCP transition composed of conceptual scaffolding, situated participation, reflection-in-practice, and power negotiation. These findings suggest that the IPE-IPCP transition is less a transfer of competencies than a process through which students learn to enact IPCP by reflecting on and negotiating professional hierarchy. Blended IPE should help facilitators turn emerging power asymmetries in practice settings into opportunities for such enactment.