What Can Veterinary Educators Learn from PE Teachers?

Veterinary education requires the training of students in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. However, the veterinary education literature tends to focus more on the cognitive domain, with less emphasis on the affective and psychomotor domains. Physical education (PE) teachers have been teaching psychomotor skills to students for decades using a variety of teaching models. Teaching models provide a framework encompassing theory, student and teacher interactions, instructional themes, research support, and valid assessments. This paper reviews some of the models used by PE teachers, including the Direct Instruction Model, the Cooperative Learning Model, the Personalized System for Instruction, and the Peer Teaching Model. We posit that these models might be particularly helpful for novice teachers in veterinary education settings, providing a structure for the teaching and assessment of psychomotor skills.