Abstract:

Assessment using case based practical exams that require demonstration of clinical practice skills and articulation of clinical reasoning is commonly used in undergraduate allied health and nursing professions. The use of technology such as audiovisual recordings as a tool to enhance visual and verbal feedback about clinical skills including communication skills, handling of clients and preparing the environment to maximize the effectiveness of treatment has been noted in the literature.

However, students often struggle in understanding and evaluating their performance of practical skills in preparation for summative practical assessment tasks. The fear of attempting and completing practical tasks does not contribute to learning. Any means of encouraging self evaluation and facilitating learning that is driven by the learner and not the assessor will contribute to the performance of the student in the short term and the practitioner in the future.

This project sought ways of enhancing the student experience of feedback by using audiovisual technology and then sought to explore and understand the students’ experience of the activity and the feedback provided. The student participants completed a simulated practical exam task using a client scenario which they had selected for the task.

Feedback from the student participants was sought in three stages: a pre experience questionnaire, post experience questionnaire and feedback preference, and feedback evaluation. Feedback was then provided by the lecturer to the students using the audiovisual recording as the basis for discussion.

Thematic analysis of the pre-experience data revealed students’ concerns about seeing themselves on screen, fear of failure, nervousness and self consciousness. Analysis of the themes from the post experience questionnaire revealed many positive outcomes including the ability to visualize themselves handle a patient, listening to and understanding the effectiveness of their instructions, and the experience of being in an exam situation. A strong theme to emerge was that the experience of completing the simulated tasks also forced students to begin preparation for their summative assessment tasks much earlier than they would have otherwise done.

Comments from the students about the feedback they had received from the assessor in the small group session revealed many positive benefits. These included a strong alignment with each student’s self-evaluation, improved awareness of what students need to do to improve and for some an internal reframing because they were demonstrating higher levels of practical skills than they initially perceived.

This research also found that factors that improved student confidence and the quality of interaction between student and lecturer included: allowing students to have the opportunity to structure the feedback session based on their goals, allowing them to control the replay of the recording in order to stop at stages that were related to their learning, and providing a comfortable and relaxed setting. The fear of failure, lack of confidence in self evaluation skills together with the unknown of the exam experience can lead to significant stress for many students. The use of audiovisual recording of a simulated exam task can make a significant contribution to enhancing the accuracy of a student’s ability to accurately self-evaluate and can enrich the exam experience as a learning opportunity.

Keywords:

Physiotherapy, self evaluation, sustainable learning, practical skills.