First-year Master Research Articles

A Comparison of Two Strategies for Teaching Medical Screening and Patient Referral in a Physical Therapist Professional Degree Program

Background and Purpose. Little quantitative research exists describing the effectiveness of instructional strategies for developing medical screening and patient referral abilities of physical therapist (PT) professional degree students. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of 2 patient case-based instructional strategies designed to promote these abilities: (1) a traditional lecture (TL) format and (2) student/faculty role-playing (RP) sessions. Methods/Model and Description and Evaluation. Fifty-one first-year Master of Physical Therapy (MPT) students enrolled in a cardiopulmonary course volunteered to participate in the study. Four patient cases were presented in either a TL or RP format. After completion of the instructional unit, students took a written examination, rated their levels of confidence in medical screening and patient referral abilities, and completed a unit evaluation assessing the instructor's behavior and teaching methods. Outcomes. Compared to the TL group, the RP group: (1) achieved higher overall scores on the written examination (P = .01), and on questions representing the Application level of Bloom's Taxonomy (P = .01); (2) reported higher self-confidence in medical screening and patient referral abilities (P < .05); and (3) were more satisfied with their educational experience than the TL group (P = .0001). There were no between-group differences in student demographics, grade point averages, performance on the knowledge and the synthesis level questions, learning styles, or students' perception of the instructor's level of interest in teaching the material. Discussion and Conclusion. The RP group's examination performance, self-confidence, and satisfaction appeared to be enhanced by the teaching strategy, rather than student characteristics or instructor bias. Our results suggest that case-based active learning activities including RP strategies should be incorporated into physical therapist education program curricula to develop medical screening and patient referral skills.

Can first-year students master clinical skills?

Performances on a clinical skills OSCE of first- and second-year students were compared to measure the success of a new interviewing and physical examination component of the first-year curriculum.

At Play in the Fields of Memory—A “Novel” Approach to Training

This paper offers a narrative approach to teaching first-year Master's level family therapy students. In an introductory course at the school of family therapy students were asked to write a brief narrative account of family memories. Then they were asked to edit that account four times: The first two times using ideas and concepts from traditional schools of family therapy, the second two times using ideas from postmodernism and social construction theory. Students found this experience helpful in not only making distinctions between the schools of therapy, but in distinguishing between modernism and postmodernism as it applies to clinical practice and personal identity.

Interdisciplinary Training of Mental Health Professionals

Interdisciplinary mental health teams are expected to staff the mental health centers of today and tomorrow. Existing training programs do not prepare staff to work in such settings. Instead of being trained separately and then learning to work as a team, mental health professionals should be trained by interdisciplinary programs. Task analysis suggests that such training should develop knowledge and skill in diagnosis-assessment, treatment, consultation, research, teaching, administration, prevention, and professional identity. A one-year training program for first-year psychiatric residents, psychology interns, and Master’s level students in social work and mental health nursing is described. Didactic teaching and clinical experience would be carried on by university faculty who are also members of a mental health team serving a catchment area in Sacramento County.