Improving students’ interpersonal skills through experiential small group learning.

Abstract

Health professional students must be equipped with the skills necessary to interact with patients. Effective interpersonal skills are difficult to both learn and teach, requiring development, practise and evaluation in both educational and clinical settings. In professions such as physiotherapy, traditional approaches to teaching these skills have encompassed clinical modelling, and stand-alone didactic teaching of the theory behind communication. These provide limited opportunity for students to practise and receive feedback on their interpersonal and communication skills. This paper describes the implementation of an experiential small group learning approach in an undergraduate physiotherapy program and discusses outcomes. Implications for practice are that: experientially based small group learning with opportunities for practise, reflection, self-evaluation and feedback, can improve students' confidence and interpersonal skills; consistent and scaffolded participation in experiential learning opportunities and assessment of this participation across the program is key to this approach. Interpersonal skills remain a challenge for new graduates; support and mentoring in this domain by supervisors may enhance the transition to work.Health professional education programs are now introducing more explicit teaching and assessment of interpersonal and communication skills under the banner of "professional skills". Gibson and Molloy (2012) indicated newly graduated health professionals have "a greater need for professional skill development, and assessment, within the health professions". Specific to physiotherapy, Ajjawi & Higgs (2008) describe interpersonal skills, including communication, collaboration and critical self-evaluation, as important skills and attributes which need to be explicitly included in physiotherapy programs if we are to better prepare students for employment. Evidence indicates it is important that students are motivated to change and develop their communication skills, and that the training should be experientially based and include formative feedback (Parry & Brown, 2009, p. 298).

Not Everything Important Is Taught in the Classroom: Using Cocurricular Professional Development Workshops to Enhance Student Careers

“…Skills developed outside the classroom through cocurricular activities can help prepare students for their careers by enhancing their ability to work with others. As discussed above, research has shown that when students engage in experiential learning that includes a reflective component it enhances their interpersonal skills (Skinner et al, 2016). These PD experiential activities provided a unique opportunity for social development while enhancing practical skills.…”

“…These assumptions are based on what professors deem valuable that can, at times, ignore the perspective and needs of students. For example, the assumption that using cases and lectures is adequate for student learning ignores the wealth of research that shows that experiential learning is critical to student learning (AACSB, 2018;Kolb, 1984;Pfeffer & Fong, 2002;Skinner et al, 2016). Livingston (1971) criticizes teaching with cases because it teaches students to strive for a right answer determined by someone else, rather than learning how to identify and solve real problems through experiential exercises.…”

“…Cocurricular activities provide the opportunity to apply and practice concepts and to discuss or reflect on what occurred during the exercise, which are integral components of experiential learning (Stirling & Kerr, 2015). Research has also shown that applying theory in practice and engaging in group focused reflections (as often happens in a workshop environment) can enhance interpersonal skills in participants (Skinner et al, 2016).…”

Occupational Therapy Students’ Experiential and Self-Regulated Learning in a Community Program for Breast Cancer Survivors

“…Experiential learning bridges the gap of paper learning through real life contextual experiences. It is a well-documented means of instruction in a variety of medical professions education including nursing programs (Hill, 2017;Lisko & O'Dell, 2010), physical therapy (Skinner et al, 2016), and medical programs (Yardley et al, 2012). Experiential learning theory provides a direct, effective mechanism to expand didactic knowledge and apply to real world clinical experiences, which is necessary for students to develop clinical reasoning skills.…”

Experiential learning in physical therapy education

“…Instructors can promote reflection and self-evaluation through assignments linked to experiential learning activities. Skinner et al 16 found that when physiotherapy students were provided with opportunities for “practice, reflection, self-evaluation and feedback” (p. 1), their confidence and interpersonal skills improved. They also noted that even in groups that specifically focused on interpersonal skills, students still scored lower in these areas of practice than others, indicating the need for more intense focus on interpersonal skills training in PT programs.…”