Chapter 20 - Planning and Assessing Clinical Simulation Using Task Analysis

Abstract

Modern healthcare education has shifted from the traditional to the outcome-based educational model in which education aims to ensure that learners achieve clearly defined competencies. Curriculum framework is an organized teaching plan to achieve expected learning outcomes and competencies by learners. It defines the content to be learned. The content is further broken down into its structural components called tasks. Tasks are hierarchical and may include subtasks. Often, several tasks are combined into phases. Task analysis is a process by which each task is broken down into its component parts. It is used for planning and analysis of the educational processes, including clinical simulation. Task analysis is one of the most ambiguous and least understood components of the instructional design process. This ambiguity comes from the fact that task analysis is highly context-dependent and is often used for several purposes. Task analysis can be used to analyze activity, learning processes, content, procedures, and cognitive tasks. The process of task analysis is highly context-dependent and is a set of tools rather than a method.