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Tuttle N1, Horan S1
1Griffith University, School of Allied Health Sciences, Gold Coast, Australia
Background: Simulated learning environments (SLEs) are increasingly being used to replace or supplement clinical placements with often superior, or at least non-inferior outcomes compared with traditional placements. There is limited literature evaluating SLEs that replace on-campus teaching and to our knowledge no studies that use SLEs to counteract the demonstrated negative impact of a delay between on-campus teaching and clinical placements.
Purpose: To describe the evaluation of a simulation-based learning (SBL) module developed to (i) better prepare Physiotherapy students for clinical placement and (ii) to act as a refresher for students who have a delay between on-campus teaching and their related clinical placements.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study. Participants were in the first of two years of a graduate entry, Masters program: 208 students from three non-SBL cohorts (2012-2014) and 149 students from two cohorts (2016-2017) who received the SBL immediately before their first two clinical placements. An integrated clinical placement model is adopted, where students undertake a clinical placement in an inpatient orthopaedic surgical setting after one semester of on-campus content. Students undertake this placement either immediately after their on-campus content or after a delay or five or ten weeks. Similarly, at the end of their second semester, students undertake a clinical placement in a musculoskeletal outpatient setting either immediately or approximately ten weeks after relevant on-campus content. Out of the SBL students 92 undertook their clinical placement immediately after their on-campus content while 57 had a delay of five or more weeks. The timing of placements were not influenced by students' prior performance. Performance on clinical placements was assessed at mid-placement and end of placement by the Assessment of Physiotherapy Practice (APP), a reliable and valid tool which is used for assessing all physiotherapy clinical placements within Australia. Prior to 2016, educators were not required to submit mid-placement marks so mid-placement scores were only analysed for comparing within cohorts.
Results: Comparing the SBL and non-SBL cohorts, there was a significant main effect of SBL with scores being higher for those exposed to the SBL (3.01/4, SD=0.20 vs 3.11/4, SD=0.23). Post Hoc analysis indicated that the APP scores were significantly higher for all seven areas of assessment following the inclusion of SBL. Unexpectedly, students who undertook the simulation and subsequent placement with a delay after on-campus content performed significantly better at mid-placement (2.2, SD 0.28 vs 2.1, SD=0.31), while no difference was observed at end of placement.
Conclusion(s): Replacing one week of classroom teaching significantly improved student performance on clinical placement. One week of specifically targeted SBL immediately prior to clinical placements negated, and for mid-placement marks, reversed a previously observed negative impact of delay. The higher scores following delay may be due to knowledge consolidation or reduced student fatigue from having vacationed between on-campus content and clinical placement.
Implications: It may be worthwhile including SBL in place of some classroom time. Timing of clinical placements and SBL seem to have an impact on student performance.
Keywords: Simulation, clinical placements, curriculum design
Funding acknowledgements: No funding was received for this project.
Purpose: To describe the evaluation of a simulation-based learning (SBL) module developed to (i) better prepare Physiotherapy students for clinical placement and (ii) to act as a refresher for students who have a delay between on-campus teaching and their related clinical placements.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study. Participants were in the first of two years of a graduate entry, Masters program: 208 students from three non-SBL cohorts (2012-2014) and 149 students from two cohorts (2016-2017) who received the SBL immediately before their first two clinical placements. An integrated clinical placement model is adopted, where students undertake a clinical placement in an inpatient orthopaedic surgical setting after one semester of on-campus content. Students undertake this placement either immediately after their on-campus content or after a delay or five or ten weeks. Similarly, at the end of their second semester, students undertake a clinical placement in a musculoskeletal outpatient setting either immediately or approximately ten weeks after relevant on-campus content. Out of the SBL students 92 undertook their clinical placement immediately after their on-campus content while 57 had a delay of five or more weeks. The timing of placements were not influenced by students' prior performance. Performance on clinical placements was assessed at mid-placement and end of placement by the Assessment of Physiotherapy Practice (APP), a reliable and valid tool which is used for assessing all physiotherapy clinical placements within Australia. Prior to 2016, educators were not required to submit mid-placement marks so mid-placement scores were only analysed for comparing within cohorts.
Results: Comparing the SBL and non-SBL cohorts, there was a significant main effect of SBL with scores being higher for those exposed to the SBL (3.01/4, SD=0.20 vs 3.11/4, SD=0.23). Post Hoc analysis indicated that the APP scores were significantly higher for all seven areas of assessment following the inclusion of SBL. Unexpectedly, students who undertook the simulation and subsequent placement with a delay after on-campus content performed significantly better at mid-placement (2.2, SD 0.28 vs 2.1, SD=0.31), while no difference was observed at end of placement.
Conclusion(s): Replacing one week of classroom teaching significantly improved student performance on clinical placement. One week of specifically targeted SBL immediately prior to clinical placements negated, and for mid-placement marks, reversed a previously observed negative impact of delay. The higher scores following delay may be due to knowledge consolidation or reduced student fatigue from having vacationed between on-campus content and clinical placement.
Implications: It may be worthwhile including SBL in place of some classroom time. Timing of clinical placements and SBL seem to have an impact on student performance.
Keywords: Simulation, clinical placements, curriculum design
Funding acknowledgements: No funding was received for this project.
Topic: Education; Education: clinical
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: Griffith University
Ethics committee: Human Research Ethics Committee
Ethics number: PES/40/12/HREC
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
