Assessing Communications Competencies through Reviews of Client Interactions and Comprehensive Rotation Assessment: A...

Area of Science:

• Veterinary Education
• Communication Skills Assessment
• Clinical Skills Evaluation

Background:

• Effective client communication is crucial in veterinary medicine.
• Assessing student communication skills requires reliable and valid methods.
• Existing assessment tools may vary in their effectiveness and efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare video-recorded interaction analysis with a comprehensive rotation-assessment tool for evaluating veterinary student communication.
• To identify student strengths and weaknesses to enhance pre-clinical communication training.
• To assess inter-rater reliability among different types of evaluators.

Main Methods:

• Video recordings of 43 veterinary student-client interactions were reviewed using a common rubric by clinicians, a social worker, and a communications instructor.
• Scores from the rubric were compared to global scores from a comprehensive rotation-assessment tool.
• Appointment duration was analyzed based on appointment type and animal species.

Main Results:

• Student scores on video review differed significantly based on the evaluator, with the social worker scoring highest and the communications instructor lowest.
• Identified student strengths included client greetings, initial information gathering, and use of lay terminology.
• Identified student weaknesses included summarizing information, discussing finances, and making recommendations.

Conclusions:

• Both assessment methods offer insights, but evaluator variability in video review necessitates standardized training or careful selection of assessors.
• Findings provide actionable data for refining the veterinary pre-clinical communication curriculum.
• Further research into optimizing communication assessment tools and evaluator consistency is warranted.