Student Growth in Clinical Reasoning and Communication through Practice
Authors: Peterson Diana Coomes , Hamel Renee N 
Published: June 2021

Objective

Professionalism is a characteristic that is required of clinicians but is difficult to teach. To help students grow in professional communication, students were challenged in their communication practices by placing them into non‐complimentary communication style groups.

Methods

Students were given a communication social style test (i.e., “SELF profile”). The profile categorizes individuals into 4 categories (S, E, L, and F) based on how they best relate to others. Test responses are rated in the domains of introversion versus extroversion as well as task versus relationship preferences. Results from the profile were used to place students in teams that would maximally challenge their ability to work together.

Teams worked together on quizzes, assignments, tests, papers, presentations, or clinical cases. The teams remained the same during 2 courses (Neuroscience and Adult Neuro Rehab). These classes met twice a week for 16 weeks from 8–12AM and 1–3PM. Both classes consisted of the same students and faculty instructors.

To test for communication issues, faculty evaluated communication within teams throughout the course. Conflicts were noted in a daily log by the instructors. In addition, student feedback and peer assessment on communication competencies were collected during week 10 and 16 of the course.

Results

The student population results from the SELF profile showed an uneven distribution of communication styles (S: 47%; E: 7%; L: 24%; F: 22%). Teams were distributed into 3 groups of E/F, 8 groups of E/L, and one control group consisting of S/F.

All teams acknowledged that they had some form of communication challenge throughout the courses, and that these challenges were more prominent than they had experienced in other courses. However, 93% of the students reported that they grew in their ability to communicate over the course of the semester and believed that the experience would assist them as clinicians in the future.

Problems observed consisted of: failure to listen (63%), individuals trying to dominate the conversation (17%), individuals not speaking (i.e., shy; 3%), holding a grudge (3%), being overly critical of others (3%), and problems with division of work (10%). Within teams, most of the students (71%) indicated that they solved their issues by listening to their classmates and talking about differences of opinion.

Several students (5%) said that many of their issues stemmed from students working at different paces. These groups indicated that they solved the dilemma by asking whether everyone in the group was ready to talk about the answers before starting conversations. Only one student (2%) thought that talking about conflict with their peers was unsuccessful. It is interesting that this student was in the control condition (S/F).

Our results indicate that placing students in teams designed to challenge their communication style may be helpful for the development of professional communication competency in professional curricula. While communication was not the focus of the courses, these exercises helped students to practice and grow from each other in both their awareness of other communication styles as well as their adaptability to disparate styles in others.

Support or Funding Information

Research is funded through a HPU Growth Mindset Pedagogy Grant.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.