Presenters: Joy Rhoades, Amy Harcourt, and Lauren Goforth
This session will share findings from an innovative teaching strategy with higher education faculty and inspire ideas for their courses. Clinical reasoning is a challenging skill for healthcare students to develop during didactic coursework due to limited clinical experience. This study explored the impact of a teaching strategy called Clinical Reasoning Theater (CRT) on clinical reasoning development. CRT was implemented in a hybrid musculoskeletal course in a Doctor of Physical Therapy program. The strategy involved online assignments featuring recorded patient examinations by the instructor who verbalized their reasoning process. Sixty-four students viewed these recordings, responded to open-ended questions, and compared their answers to the instructor’s. This format mirrored the final practical exam. A convergent mixed methods approach was used over two years (2024–2025), collecting self-efficacy survey data (pre/post), final practical exam scores, and qualitative data from assignment responses and focus groups. Final practical scores were compared to two prior cohorts (n = 78) without CRT. An independent samples t-test showed significantly higher final practical scores in CRT cohorts versus non-CRT cohorts (p = 0.015). Paired t-tests showed significant improvement in self-efficacy (p < .001 for all items). Qualitative analysis yielded four themes: Confidence, Structure, Metacognition, and Clinical Reasoning. CRT significantly improved both clinical reasoning performance and self-efficacy. Students reported increased confidence in patient interactions and decision-making. They valued structured models to guide reasoning and developed metacognitive awareness of their thought processes. This study supports CRT as an effective strategy for enhancing clinical reasoning in students lacking real-world clinical exposure.
