Article
Instruction of Professional Communication Skills for Future Physicians and Teachers: Effects of E-learning featuring Video Cases and of Role Play
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Published: | September 11, 2014 |
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Introduction: Communication skills are a crucial professional competence of physicians and teachers, especially when looking at teacher-parent and physician-patient conversations.
Methods: In an interdisciplinary project, communication training and assessment modules in structurally equal versions with domain-specific content were designed: E-learning modules included theoretical and interactive elements as well as instructional videos presenting examples of good or improvable conversation scenes. Additionally, training elements for role plays with video and group feedback were developed. Communicative competence was assessed through simulated patients/ parents (SP). The videotaped SP-conversations were assessed using a validated evaluation instrument. In a randomized controlled study, four different communication training conditions were compared: E-learning, role play, and a combination of both; each condition with equal time on task. Participants in a control group started with the assessment prior to training. We address two research questions:
- 1.
- How effective are e-learning, role play, and their combination?
- 2.
- Are there differences in the training effects between the participants of teaching and medicine?
In the two domains, n=168 (n_med=72; n_teach=96) individuals were trained.
Results: The results of planned contrast analyses corroborated our expectations: First, we observed a strong overall treatment effect. Second, the combined condition was more effective than e-learning and role play alone when controlling for prior knowledge and cognitive ability. Third, e-learning proved more effective than role play. Exploring interaction effects indicated that student teachers profited more from the training than medical students.
Discussion/conclusion: The results indicate that a combination of e-learning and role play in the way developed for this study can be improve learning of communication skills more than role play alone. Implementation of this method could also save resources for teaching.