STUDENT AND TEACHER PERCEPTIONS ON SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAM AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVEMENT
SUMMARY
Context:
During the 4-year pre-clinical curriculum at the Faculty of Medicine Gadjah Mada University (FM GMU), Indonesia, medical students train clinical skills in the Skills Laboratory. Skills training plays a very important role in medical education, but once a skills training program is developed it needs to be maintained and improved. There has been no evaluation about the skills training program of FM GMU since it began in 1992. This study explored the strengths and weaknesses of the current program to guide the priorities of future improvements.
Objectives: to explore students’ and instructors’ perceptions on skills training program as a tool for improvement
Subjects: 129 Skills Lab instructors and 204 last year medical students of whom 40 follow the international program and 166 follow the regular program
Methods: The survey used a questionnaire for exploring instructors’ and students’ perceptions. The questionnaire consisted of 33 statements about various areas of the skills training program and one open question for suggestions for improvements.
Result: The survey results indicated that there are a few areas in the skills training that scored very positive and several areas that scored insufficient. Many different suggestions for improvement were obtained from the students and instructors.
Discussion: The main item that scored positive indicates that the topics for the skills training were well chosen. According to this research, the main areas that need improving are: the number and quality of equipment and manikins; the time keeping and teaching skills of the instructors; the organization of the independent practice sessions; the transparency of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), and the fees for the remediation sessions. For some of these topics solutions have already been implemented like a workshop to locally produce learning materials and the use of senior student as assistants in the independent training sessions. Other improvements are suggested like emphasizing the importance of role-modeling professional behavior in Training of Instructors (TOI). Suggestions are made for more specific research on the skills training program in the future.
Keywords: education, medical, undergraduate, skills training, evaluation, skills lab, perception, student, instructor
Widyandana, 2007, Master Thesis, Maastricht Netherlands, Supervisor: Marijke Kruithof
Contact Person for full paper: widyandana@yahoo.com
