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Fieldwork and clinical experiences are an academic requirement that occupational and physical therapy students are required to complete to obtain their professional degree. There is limited knowledge on the quantitative change in clinical reasoning among rehabilitation students participating in 3:1 collaborative or 1:1 traditional learning model during a terminal fieldwork or clinical experience. The purpose of the study was to compare change in clinical reasoning scores of rehabilitation science students who participated in a collaborative vs traditional learning model during a terminal fieldwork or clinical experience. A total of 102 cumulative clinical reasoning scores were obtained from rehabilitation students who completed the Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT) pre and post-completion of a terminal fieldwork or clinical experience at a large health care institution. A mixed-model ANOVA was done to determine the change in clinical reasoning scores among students who participated in a collaborative versus traditional learning model. Paired t-tests were completed to further analyze and interpret the discipline by model interaction. A statistically significant difference was found in discipline x time interaction. For individual disciplines, occupational therapy students had a significant change in clinical reasoning scores post-completion of a terminal fieldwork experience; however, physical therapy students did not have a significant change in clinical reasoning. J Allied Health 2020; 49(4):252-257.
CLINICAL EDUCATION is a required experience within rehabilitation science curricula, which provides experiential learning opportunities for students to focus on actual problems in a "real life" professional context.1-3 In the last decade, the clinical education site shortage has challenged academia and clinical educators to implement different clinical learning models.2,4-6 Many academic programs and clinical sites have implemented a collaborative experiential learning opportunity in the clinic to address fieldwork and clinical shortages.6
A collaborative model facilitates the development of professional and practice habits that emulate what it will be like for a student as a licensed practitioner.6 A collaborative model is a clinical educational experience that offers mentorship to occur with two or three rehabilitation students to one fieldwork educator or clinical instructor. Within this model, the students may work together and share the patient caseload of one educator. The ratios, 2:1 or 3:1, are most commonly used to identify a collaborative clinical learning model.6 Researchers support that a collaborative learning model, facilitated during experiential...