Diagnostic problem solving in male collegiate athletic trainers.

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Human Movement Science
• Clinical Practice

Background:

• Clinician expertise in injury evaluation is influenced by knowledge and experience.
• Effective injury assessment relies on selecting and executing appropriate clinical responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how collegiate male certified athletic trainers represent domain knowledge during injury evaluation.
• To describe the cognitive processes differentiating expert and novice athletic trainers in injury assessment.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study employing a situational interview and think-aloud protocol.
• Participants included 20 male certified athletic trainers (10 novice, 10 expert) from NCAA Division I and II colleges.
• Data analysis involved verbal analysis, member checks, triangulation, and peer-debriefing to ensure trustworthiness.

Main Results:

• Experts demonstrated more knowledge concepts related to patient history and predictive reasoning compared to novices.
• Novices exhibited more concepts associated with situation appraisal than experts.

Conclusions:

• Expertise in athletic training shares commonalities with other healthcare professions.
• Understanding cognitive differences can inform athletic training education and professional development programs.
• Further research should explore diagnostic problem-solving in naturalistic settings.