Applying adult education principles to the design of a preceptor development program

Abstract

For interprofessional health care teams to become realities, students must learn new team paradigms and have greater understanding of multiple disciplines. Collaboration must start early and be reinforced in clinical training environments. In recent years, this interdisciplinary learning has taken place in settings away from universities as greater emphasis is placed on community-based health care training. This shift necessitates greater emphasis on preceptor development programs. To be effective, preceptor development programs must be designed on educational principles aimed at maximizing learning for adults. In this article, we discuss four educational principles: developing programs on perceived participant needs; repeating material and sequencing material logically for greater ease of learning; anchoring new material in experiential learning and past experiences; and providing a safe and supportive learning environment. Second, we present a description of how these principles were incorporated in the East Carolina University Rural Health Training Program Preceptor Development Series.