Interactive Case-Based Tool to Enhance Problem Solving and Content Integration Skill Development in Veterinary Education Case Study

Associate Professor Ava M. Trent, Professor Jane Armstrong, and Associate Professor Jim Waddell from the Department of Clinical and Population Sciences on the Twin Cities campus are developing interactive veterinary case study templates to help students develop clinical problem-solving and knowledge integration skills.

Instructional Goals

Veterinary students need to understand how the facts and theories they learn in classes apply in clinical settings and how health care professionals work with cases using pattern recognition. The students are exposed to patients treated at the University veterinary clinics while they are taking courses, but they don't see enough to recognize patterns and learn from their mistakes. They are like the infants shown in a recent public television program about brain development who watched a number of times as toys were put in different wells and then were coaxed to choose the wells in which they were placed. In subsequent tests, they always selected the first wells they chose correctly. Similarly, veterinary students often apply what they see the first times they experience particular situations in subsequent cases, but they need to see the effects of their mistakes instead.

Some instructors have developed case studies to expose students to more situations, but these usually only fit specific needs and can't be modified by other instructors, such as for advanced instead of beginning students. Trent, Armstrong, and Waddell want to help expose students to a greater variety of cases that will help them achieve learning outcomes such as those listed in their 2002-03 TEL Grant Program proposal (PDF):

"enhanced problem-solving skills (general and context specific);
improved recall and application of knowledge in the context of clinical cases; and
increased basic knowledge understanding."

Technology Strategies

They decided to develop a prototype case study based on a typical bovine abdominal disorder using Macromedia Flash software and extensible markup language (XML), then use it as a template to develop a canine or feline abdominal disorder case study, evaluate and refine both, and finally help a group of faculty members and students develop two more case studies, one focusing on a small animal and one on a large animal or public health issue.

Students will be able to access the case studies [on the Web]. In each, they will be able to do the following:

see a photograph of healthy animal;
read about the health history of an animal encountered in a clinical setting;
select diagnostic tests, treatments, and the like;
see how their choices lead to consequences as they would in a real clinical setting, such as how test results can be affected by other tests and the order in which they are performed (for example, if you take an animal's pulse after a painful procedure, it might indicate a problem when there is none); and
obtain feedback about their choices;
access review materials, self-tests, and other related learning modules

Instructors will complete forms on the Web to modify the cases for their own uses. Specifically, they will be able to do the following:

select which procedures students can order and enter responses to them;
suppress or release information based on such things as student level (for example, so that beginning students could access resource materials or so that advanced students wouldn't obtain feedback);
link cases to factors such as the cost of tests;
track who is using the case studies, how often they are accessing them, and how the case studies are being used (i.e., for practice, assessment, or particular classes); and
alter content and develop new case studies using only limited programming skills.

Learning Outcomes

As of February 4, 2004, the investigators have assessed the feasibility of the project with the help of one of our consultants, Scott Wilson-Barnard, and begun developing the first case study. Over the 2003-04 academic year, they plan to evaluate each case study by

inviting students and faculty members to test the functionality;
tracking student use of the case studies;
conducting faculty and student surveys to determine faculty use;
comparing student test scores to student use scores;
comparing the test scores of students who use the case studies with the scores of students in past courses who did not use the case studies;
conducting faculty and student surveys at the beginning and end of clinical rotation periods to identify perceptions of the case studies; and
comparing new and past national board scores.