Discipline of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Sciences University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Durban, South Africa.
Afr Health Sci. 2021 Dec;21(4):1941-1949. doi: 10.4314/ahs.v21i4.53.
In piloting a shift from traditional practice-based placements to decentralised clinical training (DCT), there was a need to explore the factors that influenced the placement as part of monitoring and evaluation. DCT involves placement to clinical sites away from the higher education institution necessitating changes to supervision strategies utilised.
This study explored the experiences of clinical educators supervising occupational therapy students within this new model during a pilot phase of the DCT programme at one institution in South Africa.
The study was located in KwaZulu-Natal province and followed an explorative qualitative design with semi-structured interviews and focus groups with purposively sampled clinical educators (n=11). Data were audio-recorded and d thematically analysed.
Two central themes emerged and included the clinical educators' expectations (organisation factors, role and scope of partners in decentralised training and communication) and experiences (perspectives and value of decentralised training).
Decentralised training has considerable potential to contribute to authentic student learning. Improved communication between all stakeholders would assist in enhancing the quality of the learning experiences on such platforms. Students need to be more prepared prior to commencing DCT, and there is a need for more rural placements with a primary health care focus.
在从传统的基于实践的实习向分散式临床培训（DCT）转变的过程中，需要探索影响实习的因素，作为监测和评估的一部分。DCT 涉及到临床地点的实习，远离高等教育机构，这需要改变所使用的监督策略。
本研究探讨了南非一所机构的 DCT 计划试点阶段中，临床教育者在这种新模式下监督职业治疗学生的经验。
该研究位于夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省，采用探索性定性设计，对有目的抽样的临床教育者（n=11）进行半结构化访谈和焦点小组讨论。数据进行了录音和主题分析。
出现了两个核心主题，包括临床教育者的期望（组织因素、分散式培训中合作伙伴的角色和范围以及沟通）和经验（分散式培训的观点和价值）。
分散式培训具有为学生提供真实学习的巨大潜力。所有利益相关者之间更好的沟通将有助于提高这些平台上的学习体验质量。学生在开始 DCT 之前需要有更多的准备，并且需要更多以初级卫生保健为重点的农村实习。
