A Survey of Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students' Perceptions of Telepractice Pre- and Posttraining During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Purpose: Many university programs in speech-language pathology that offer clinical training as part of their graduate training transitioned to a telepractice service delivery model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to survey speech-language pathology graduate student clinicians on their knowledge of and comfortability with telepractice before and after participation in a telepractice training program. Method: Graduate students in a speech-language pathology distance program participated in a remote summer clinical internship that included a 5-week telepractice training. Pre- and posttraining surveys were completed by 27 graduate students. Results: Results of a Wilcoxon signed-ranks test indicated that posttest telepractice knowledge question scores were significantly greater than pretest telepractice knowledge question scores. Likewise, posttest telepractice comfort question scores were significantly greater than pretest telepractice comfort question scores. Conclusions: These findings support the need to integrate a telepractice component to clinical education for speech-language pathology programs at the graduate level. Offering a specifically designed and hands-on telepractice training to graduate students in speech-language pathology can be an effective pedagogical piece to university degree programs.