The Acquisition of Instructional Strategies through a Four-Session Athletic Trainer Clinical Instructor Workshop

Abstract
Athletic training clinical education combines didactic education with practical experiences.  Athletic training education programs facilitate the development of this instruction by preparing the clinical instructors affiliated with the program. Primarily through one-time workshops, this effort provides limited delivery of content to prepare these clinical instructors. In an attempt to identify which method of content delivery would most benefit clinical instructors, this research creates a unique methods to further investigate this issue. This study compared the acquisition of knowledge between the traditional single session clinical instructor workshop to a modified four-session workshop on athletic training clinical education instructional strategies. Method: A pre-post assessment was utilized to measure the acquisition of clinical instruction skills for a control and experimental group of clinical instructors within a single accredited athletic training education program.  Eleven clinical instructors participated in the experimental group while fifteen clinical instructors participated in the control group (N=26).  A standardized instrument for assessment compared control and experimental group participants’ acquisition of information delivered through the clinical workshop models. Results: Statistical analysis of the results from the testing instrument identified a statistical difference (p=.003) between the control and experimental groups implying an acquisition of knowledge from the clinical instructor workshop interventions. Conclusions: This study supports the implementation of multiple session clinical workshops for athletic training clinical instructor workshop training as an alternative method to the traditional single session workshop delivery mode. Nurturing clinical instructors through instructional develops a positive learning environment to ensure their success.