Self-efficacy in Prosthetics & Orthotics students who did and did not participate in short term study abroad programs – preliminary results

Abstract

It is conventional knowledge that travel is educational and that a study stay in a foreign country contributes to a student's personality formation and well-roundedness. The benefit of such experiences on attitudes that shape professional aptitude and career success may, however, be debated. It could be argued that exposure to experiences that are irrelevant to a student's chosen profession may have no sizeable impact – thus not justifying the invested time and money – or, in an extreme case, may even be detrimental to career success if the wrong conclusions are drawn. Examples for such occurrences may include the adoption of inappropriate belief systems, educational priorities, or work habits. In this study, it was investigated how a short-term study stay abroad was reflected in the self-efficacy of students and graduates of a professional Master of Science program. A cohort of U.S. American students of Prosthetics and Orthotics who had participated in non-compulsory study excursions to Germany and a comparable cohort of their peers who had not participated in such trips were asked to state their confidence in mastering specific hypothetical situations of daily work life. About one half of the subjects of each group had already graduated and were in residence at the time of the survey, whereas the remaining half was still in their first year of the study program. Answers were compared using descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis to investigate main and interaction effects of professional experience and short-term stay abroad. The results seem to support the hypothesis that the experience was beneficial, making the inclusion of respective course offerings recommendable.