Teaching Professionalism: Comparing Written and Video Case-Studies

PURPOSE: Professionalism is a difficult concept to teach to healthcare professionals. Case-studies in written and video format have demonstrated to be effective teaching tools to improve a student’s knowledge, but little is known about their impact on student behaviour. The purpose of this research study was to investigate and compare the impact of the 2 teaching tools on a student’s behaviour during a simulation. METHOD: A 3-stage mixed method study was conducted with senior Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) undergraduate students. All students were randomly divided into a Written Group or Video Group to attend a mandatory professionalism workshop focused on bullying and gossip. Twenty-six students completed the voluntary assignment and 21 students participated in the voluntary group simulations. Thematic analysis was performed on the assignments and simulation. Frequencies of themes were calculated. A Group Simulation Assessment Rubric was used to score simulations and calculate an adjusted group performance average (AGPA). RESULTS: The assignment demonstrates that students from both groups obtained a theoretical understanding of how to resolve gossip and bullying. From the Written Group and Video Group, 70%/18% of students discouraged/resolved gossiping and 80%/63% prevented bullying. The mean AGPA for the Written Group and Video Group was 5.4 and 4.9 respectively (t((5)) = 1.5, P = .2). DISCUSSION: Students can successfully apply knowledge they have gained in written and video case-studies focused on the professionalism topics of bullying and gossip to a hypothetical situation. However, a discrepancy in their actions was found during the simulations. The data from the study suggests that written and video case-studies do not have different impacts on a student’s behaviour.