Höfundar:
Abigail Snook, Solveig Arnadottir
Introduction: When evaluating the quality of their teaching, teachers should try to engage students/patients in three learning domains – the psychomotor (repeating the movement), the cognitive (expressing what they learned in their own words what they learned, a.k.a. teach-back method) and the affective domain (involving values and emotions as they explain why learning this is important to their goals). The purpose of the study was to explore whether healthcare professionals use all three domains when evaluating teaching effectiveness.
Methods: An online survey using Likert scales was administered to 216 practicing physical therapists in Iceland. Statements evaluated their use of the three learning domains.
Results: Looking at the psychomotor domain, 68.6% (n=148) reported that they had patients demonstrate when determining that they understood patient education. Looking at the cognitive domain, 32.1% (n=69) reported asking the patient to repeat or discuss content in their own words. Only 23.3% (n = 50) reported having the patient explain with their own words why their home exercises were important to their goals.
Discussion and conclusions: Participants utilized the psychomotor domain to assess whether a patient was learning but used the cognitive and affective domains less often. These are relatively easy domains to assess with the teach-back method (cognitive) and asking the patient why they are learning this information. Healthcare students should be taught routinely and be allowed to practice these skills with patients to evaluate the quality of their teaching. These same domains can be applied to healthcare professionals who teach students.