gms | German Medical Science

4th InVeST – International Veterinary Simulation in Teaching Conference

14.09. - 16.09.2015, Hannover

The iVetSchool Application: a multimedia approach to supplementing veterinary medical student education through problem based learning

Meeting Abstract

  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Jennifer Roberts - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
  • author Ann Rashmir - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
  • author Robert Malinowski - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
  • author Jon Patterson - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
  • author Kent Ames - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
  • author Frank Welker - Ohio State University, Marysville, OH, United States
  • author Lowell Midla - Ohio State University, Marysville, OH, United States
  • author Ben Nabors - Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, United States
  • author Robert Linford - Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, United States
  • author Matt Raven - Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States

InVeST 2015: International Veterinary Simulation in Teaching Conference. Hannover, 14.-16.09.2015. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2015. Doc15invest25

doi: 10.3205/15invest25, urn:nbn:de:0183-15invest255

Published: September 10, 2015

© 2015 Roberts et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Students’ assessment of clinical cases in teaching hospitals is a principle tenet to veterinary education worldwide. Training large animal veterinarians has become increasingly more challenging due to the decreasing numbers of food animal and equine cases at many veterinary colleges. With increased urbanization, the decline in large animal cases admitted to veterinary teaching hospitals has continued. Preservation of cases in a digitally based, interactive fashion is a logical step in the evolution of veterinary education and could contribute significantly to teaching in the veterinary curriculum. The iVetSchool App, developed by the investigators, uses media rich, clinically based case studies to train students in a problem based learning format. The app allows instructors to replace traditional, text-based cases in Problem Based Learning courses with an interactive format that is more engaging for today’s technologically inclined veterinary student population.

The purpose of this innovative idea was to address deficiencies in clinical case exposure by identifying exemplar large animal cases and developing them into multimedia-based case studies. Large animal veterinary educators developed a list of technical procedures with an emphasis on both techniques and skills required to diagnose, manage, and treat large animal diseases by an entry level veterinary practitioner. Actual clinical cases were used to develop the media-based case studies. The case studies walk students through a media-based clinical case from history and diagnosis to treatment and outcome. In addition to teaching clinical problem solving and reasoning skills, each case study was designed to teach specific large animal diseases or food safety techniques. In conjunction with the writing the text based portion of the case studies, appropriate aspects of the clinical case were digitized to produce the final media-based case study. Examples of integrated multimedia include videos of techniques, photographs of patients, audio files, diagrams, radiographs, laboratory results, and text-based content.

A key point to the efficacy of an instructional program incorporating the use of an App is that students must enjoy the format of the training and want to continue its use. Therefore, students were asked to evaluate the App at the end of the semester with a survey. The survey contained two scales each comprised of four Likert scale items and seven open-ended questions designed to illicit deeper insight into the students’ perspective regarding the iVetSchool App. Students had an overall positive response (3.6/5) indicating that they enjoyed using the App and that it helped them learn relevant material. Positive comments about the App included that students were able to work at their own pace anywhere and anytime with nearly 25% of the students volunteering that they enjoyed the variety of cases available. The most common criticism of the App was that students did not always like the way their answers were scored. The overall student evaluation of the App was positive and warrants further integration into veterinary curricula.

Although the iVetSchol app is designed for veterinary students, the App is a reference library of archived clinical cases that may be useful to practicing veterinarians, animal scientists, and secondary/postsecondary agricultural educators anywhere in the world.


References

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