Health science staff and student experiences of teaching and assessing clinical skills using digital tools: a qualitative study

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Video Abstract

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© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Figure 1. Interview guide used.

Figure 2. Example of the mapping process between codes and theme.

Table 1. Participant group characteristics (N = 18).

Participant		n		n
	Student	8	Staff	10
Gender
	Female	6		9
	Male	2		1
Discipline
	Pharmacy	2
	Nursing	1
	Dentistry	1		1
	Physiotherapy	2
	Radiation Therapy			2
	Medicine	1
	Sport and Exercise Medicine	1
	Human Nutrition and Dietetics			1
	Speech and Language Therapy			1
	Physiology			2
	Learning Technology			1
	Clinical Skills			2
Degree
	Undergraduate	7
	Postgraduate	1
Year of Study
	1st	2
	2nd	3
	3rd	3
Mature students		3

Note. A mature student is defined as a student aged 23-years or older on January 1st of the year of course commencement (37).

Table 2. Themes and corresponding codes generated using reflexive thematic analysis.

Research objective	Theme	Code	Example quote
1 Explore the experiences of university students and educators when navigating the teaching and assessment of core clinical competencies remotely, and how teaching effects learning.	Educators adapting what they know	Difficulty adapting	The delivery of radiation, there’s a real practicality to that… How you replicate that when you can’t have that hands-on… that kind of gave us big headaches. – Staff08
		Educators doing the best they can	In the middle of the pandemic, it became very much ‘‘but do whatever you can’’ and every idea is a good idea when you have nothing. – Staff06
		Building confidence experimenting with technology	We become confident as well I think in going ‘‘oh, did you not try not try this? Or how about doing this?’’ – Staff03
		Demonstrations of innovation and creativity	We have a Massive Online Open Course… for patients and the general public… we were able to use that with some of the clinical placement hours for students… it actually then became part of teaching even though we never set out for it to be like that in the first place. – Staff05
		Judicious use of technology	You shouldn’t use technology just because it exists out there in the market. You have to see whether it actually suits. – Staff07
	How we teach practical skills will change	Passive to active learning	(Students) preferred to go and look at the videos. So they like self-directed learning, which is good, very good, for long term learning and for lifelong learning… online learning encourages this. –Staff07
		Future skill teaching should be blended	I think blended learning is the way to go in the future. – Student01, Nursing
		Imagining the possibilities	If they could use the interactive patients, (not) like the finicky ones, but that speak and do all those weird and wonderful things…that replicate actual patients. – Student07, Physiotherapy
	The integrity of online practical teaching and assessment	Pressure to uphold standard of teaching	We’ve standards of proficiency that have to be met and you have to stand over that someone can physically do that job. – Staff05
		Standardisation of competency assessment	I think there’s a chance to bring standardizable formats in… (assessment) was always patient based, they wanted a live patient and I think we’re moving away from that for some exams. – Staff01
		Integrity of online assessment	I think it’s a big fear in our school in particular, about standing over online assessments. – Staff05
2 Identify the skills, and components of skills, suited to distance or digitally enhanced teaching.	Layers of multifaceted skills can be taught online	Building competency in low stake skills	They were signed off (as competent) by a clinician remotely - they were just floating on air. You know, they just thought yes, I can do this. – Staff08
		Complex skills are learnt in clinical settings	To learn the skill, they have to perform the skill. You can do all of the supporting theoretical teaching, the pre-recordings, the video … but if they don’t do it themselves, that’s it. – Staff10
		Unsuitability of some skills	It’s hard to just solely learn certain practical skills online. – Student08, Pharmacy

Figure 3. Infographic illustrating main study results and the interplay between variables, experiences and processed as described by participants.

Note. Themes are presented as the four cornerstones to experience.

Citizens Information Board. Third-level courses for mature students [Webpage]. 2022 Feb 24. Available from: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/third_level_education/applying_to_college/third_level_courses_for_mature_students.html.

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Data availability

A completed Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) checklist is available in the supplementary materials. Participants did not consent to having their data shared on an open repository.