by Brooke Bunch

Confidence is the key according to Doug Mann, Ph.D., assistant professor of social medicine and executive assistant to the dean.

Mann and David Eland, D.O., associate professor of family medicine, are leading the way to new research which supports the notion that self-efficacy is the key to effective learning and application.

Mann believes in the power of self-confidence when it comes to learning basic principles in osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM).

“We want the students to feel confident in their skill ability and then they’re more likely to do it, to use the skill,” he says.

To increase self-efficacy levels among students, Mann proposes the use of mastery learning, a technique designed to enhance traditional learning by utilizing additional resources and practice for optimal understanding.

“Mastery learning is the idea of developing clear instructional materials, giving people time to work on their own, and have more than one opportunity to demonstrate mastery,” Mann explained. “It strives to get 80 to 90 percent of the students at a mastery level rather than just a few, as demonstrated by the bell curve.”

In order to test their hypothesis on the effects of mastery learning on self-efficacy levels, Mann and Eland used the method in teaching OU-COM students the Spencer technique, an OMM procedure for the shoulder.

According to Mann, there were four steps involved in the OMM mastery learning. In addition to the professor demonstration and paired practice, students were provided with videotapes to practice on their own. They then returned after practicing to perform the technique on either a faculty member or fellow to get feedback on how they performed.

“We thought it would improve their learning,” Mann says.

Attempts were successful. Students’ ratings of the learning experience were high, noting they were confident in using the skill.

“We were encouraged by the response to this,” Mann says. “We thought one of the problems of traditional teaching is the students didn’t know if they were doing it right or wrong.”

Their research article, “The effect of mastery learning on self-efficacy in applying a therapeutic psychomotor skill,” is up for publication in the February 2005 issue of Perceptual and Motor Skills.

According to Mann, the use of OMM in clinical practice has been steadily declining throughout the past few decades, a major threat to the osteopathic profession. More than one fifth of the physicians surveyed said they lacked confidence in their OMM abilities.

“We thought it may go back all the way to when they first learned it,” Mann says. “They may not try it (OMM) if they’re not confident about it. If they never feel confident enough to try it on a patient, it doesn’t do much good.”

To counteract the declining use and low confidence levels of OMM, Mann suggests the use of mastery learning on basic principles to elevate self-efficacy levels.

“We want to do more of this in OU-COM,” he says. “This is a teaching method by which students can feel confident that they learned correctly.

“We’re trying to make a small contribution to one of the problems in the profession — that of declining manipulative treatment. We don’t think the lack of confidence is the main reason, but we think it’s an important reason.”