|
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.”
News for
the week of Jan. 3 - Jan. 8
News for
the week of Dec. 26 - Jan. 1
News Archives
|
