Teaching psychomotor skills in the twenty-first century: Revisiting and reviewing instructional approaches through the lens of contemporary literature

Abstract

A diverse range of health professionals use psychomotor skills as part of their professional practice roles. Most health disciplines use large or complex psychomotor skills. These skills are first taught by the educator then acquired, performed, and lastly learned. Psychomotor skills may be taught using a variety of widely-accepted and published teaching models. The number of teaching steps used in these models varies from two to seven. However, the utility of these models to teach skill acquisition and skill retention are disputable when teaching complex skills, in contrast to simple skills. Contemporary motor learning and cognition literature frames instructional practices which may assist the teaching and learning of complex task-based skills. This paper reports 11 steps to be considered when teaching psychomotor skills.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes on contributors

Delwyn Nicholls, BAAppSc (MedRad), GDMedus, DMU (vascular), GDHEd, GCH.Ed, is a sonographer, clinical skill coordinator, and tutor. She has worked as a tutor sonographer for more than 15 years and has lectured extensively on key aspects relevant to skills education and sonographer clinical supervision. Delwyn is a second year PhD student at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.

A/Prof. Linda Sweet, BNg, MNgS, PhD, GCEd, is a nurse and midwife with broad experience in many different clinical environments, education, management and research. Whilst working full time in academia, Linda has a strong background in developing clinical educators and interests in improving clinical educational practices to enhance learning.

Dr. Amanda Müller, BA (Hons), PhD, GC (H.Ed), has a bachelor in psychology and a doctorate in English. She has worked as an educator for over 20 years and a major branch of her research involves looking at cognitive approaches to instructional design and language skill learning.

Professor Jon Hyett, MBBS, BSc, MD, MRCOG, FRANZCOG, is a specialist obstetrician in high risk obstetrics and the Head of Department at Womens’ and Babies, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. He is a lecturer at Sydney University and a prolific publisher. Jon has a strong interest in obstetric and sonographer education and improving clinical practice outcomes for patient through the many research programs he either co-ordinates or contributes to.