# Instructional design/Psychomotor behaviors/Psychomotor Skills in Practice

Psychomotor Skills in Practice
The Work of Respiratory Therapists
Lesson Rationale:
To aid in understanding practical applications of the Psychomotor domain, this lesson will use, as an object lesson, the medical field. The medical profession, in its many facets, makes extensive use of the three major learning domains; cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The education of doctors, the practice of medicine, its corollary disciplines of nursing, out-patient care, therapists, clinicians (such as respiratory), and others, engage all aspects of the learners’ and practitioners’ capabilities.
In summary, medical professionals draw upon the three domains in the following ways:
* Cognitive (knowing) domain: Focusing on knowledge acquisition and intellectual skills and abilities (e.g. the diagnosis of disease, strategizing treatment options).
* Psychomotor (doing) domain: Relating to skills that require varying levels of well-coordinated physical activity and precise manipulative procedures (e.g. simple suturing of an open wound, performing an endoscopic examination, performing sophisticated surgical procedures).
* Affective (feeling) domain: Dealing with feelings, emotions, mindsets and values, including the nurturing of desirable attitudes for personal and professional development (e.g. allaying the concerns and fears of patients, displaying empathy for the relatives of a patient who has just died, displaying mutual trust and respect in working with members of the healthcare team, upholding high ethical standards in practice).
The importance of proficiency in the learning domains is reflected in the accreditation requirement for respiratory clinicians educated by the University of Texas Medical Branch (MTMB). The accreditation statement of standards and objectives includes the following expectations of graduates in each learning domain:
* Objective #1: Affective domain: Upon completion of the program, graduates will demonstrate professional behavior consistent with employer expectations as advanced-level respiratory therapists
* Objective #2: Cognitive domain: Upon completion of the program, students will demonstrate the ability to comprehend, apply, and evaluate clinical information relevant to their role as advanced-level respiratory therapists.
* Objective #3: Psychomotor Domain: Upon completion of the program, students will demonstrate technical proficiency in all the skills necessary to fulfill their roles as advanced-level respiratory therapists.(http://sahs.utmb.edu/respiratory_care/)
Psychomotor Priorities
For medical professionals, activities within the psychomotor domain can be summarized as follows (from prior descriptions):
Relating to skills that require varying levels of well-coordinated physical activity and precise manipulative procedures. Demonstrate technical proficiency in all the skills necessary to fulfill roles in one’s chosen medical profession.
LESSON OBJECTIVES AND TASKS
Expected outcomes of this lesson fall under the larger objective of the Psychomotor Team Wikiversity project goal:
“Training developers will be able to create and/or select instructional strategies for teaching specific interpersonal topics. Additionally, they will be able to effectively and correctly evaluate different methods and strategies within the psychomotor domain, and will be able to decide which training or instructional options would be the best option to meet very specific training goals within the domain. The result shall be an instructional unit that is efficient, effective, and appealing.” (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Psychomotor_behaviors)
The scope of this lesson is limited to using the profession respiratory therapy to illustrate psychomotor behaviors. As a profession that focuses on the implementation of medical treatments more than making medical decisions, a respiratory clinician draws greatly upon psychomotor skill sets from a cognitive framework. This framework arises from both the clinician’s medical knowledge within his/her field as well as the expertise of doctors that prescribe treatment.
Upon completion of this lesson:
* Learners will be able to describe the appropriate taxonomy that supports the training of respiratory therapists.
* Using the appropriate psychomotor taxonomy, learners will be able to identify basic motor actions that become components for skilled actions.
* Provided with a description of respiratory therapists tasks, the learner will be able to match tasks with corresponding psychomotor behaviors.
LEARNING TASK #1: What is a taxonomy and how does it help in identifying psychomotor behaviors?
A taxonomy is the science of classification according to a pre-determined system, with the resulting catalog used to provide a conceptual framework for discussion, analysis, or information retrieval. A taxonomy, or classification, provides a process-oriented method for understanding a learning or training process. Benjamin Bloom, an Educational Psychologist, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bloom) pioneered the use of taxonomies in understanding how people learn. Below is Bloom’s taxonomy for the psychomotor domain:
Bloom's Taxonomy: Psychomotor Domain http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/educ_school2/docs/stai_manual/manual10.htm
LEARNING TASK #2: The Work of Respiratory Therapists
Review the following links that describe the work of respiratory therapists.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/print/ocos084.htm
http://www.careerplanner.com/Job-Descriptions/Respiratory-Therapy-Technicians.cfm
While reviewing the descriptions, perform the following task:
Identify 10 actions that can you classify as psychomotor items specific to the work of respiratory therapists?
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LEARNING TASK #3: The Psychomotor Actions of Respiratory Therapists
Using the 10 actions from the previous learning task, use Bloom’s Psychomotor Taxonomy to classify the actions of respiratory therapists. Use your judgment based on information learned from learning tasks 1 – 3. Use the first letters of the key words to indicate your classification:
* Imitation - early stages in learning a complex skill
* Manipulation - individual continues to practice a particular skill
* Precision - skill has been attained.
* Articulation - involved an even higher level of precision.
* Naturalization - response is automatic.
The results of this task will be evaluated and feedback will be provided by your instructor
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Action Classification (s)
Examples:
Identifying labored breathing (I, M)
Evaluate a patient’s lung capacity (A, N)
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