The development and evaluation of a fieldwork educator's training programme for allied health professionals

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Professional Education
• Interprofessional Learning
• Workplace Training

Background:

• Current provision of fieldwork educator training varies among healthcare professionals.
• Need for standardized core skills training for effective fieldwork education.
• Limited exploration of multi-professional approaches to this training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop, implement, and evaluate a multi-professional fieldwork educator's course.
• To assess the feasibility of delivering core fieldwork educator skills in a unified program.
• To identify key considerations for designing similar interprofessional training initiatives.

Main Methods:

• Surveys to assess current training landscape.
• Focus groups and rating scales for immediate and delayed participant feedback.
• Nominal group technique for post-completion evaluation.

Main Results:

• Core skills for fieldwork educators can be effectively taught in a multi-professional setting.
• Practitioners can integrate learned skills into their specific work environments.
• The program demonstrated feasibility and positive participant reception.

Conclusions:

• Multi-professional training is a viable model for fieldwork educator development.
• Effective integration of skills into practice is achievable through this approach.
• Guidelines for designing future interprofessional fieldwork educator courses can be established.