The Effects of Serial Position, Evaluation Format, and Behavioral Isolate on Verbal and Nonverbal Clinical Cue Recognition and Performance Ratings

<p>Standardized patients are individuals trained to realistically portray specific physical and psychological symptoms and evaluate healthcare trainees on their patient interaction skills. Prior research suggests that individual differences among standardized patients often result in assessment variance. This study examined the effects of cue serial position and evaluation format on individuals' perceptual awareness and recognition accuracy of verbal and nonverbal clinical cues. It was predicted that implementing periodic evaluations would reduce participant working memory load and permit better awareness and recognition of relevant clinical cues than the traditional post-scenario evaluation format. The concurrent evaluation benefit was also expected to mitigate the well-documented serial position decrement for information occurring in the middle of a scenario. The results suggested that verbal and nonverbal cues appearing early or late in the scenario were generally more salient than those appearing mid-scenario, but observers were better able to recognize both when permitted to offload working memory through periodic evaluation. The study also investigated the impact of a single inconsistent, unprofessional behavior exhibited by the simulated healthcare provider (SHP) on participant ratings of the SHP's clinical competence. The behavioral isolate did not influence participants' overall rating regardless of where it occurred in the scenario. Further, the isolate affected the segmental ratings of both evaluation groups when embedded early in the scenario and also affected the ratings of the concurrent evaluation group when embedded later in the scenario. This implies a reluctance on the part of retrospective participants to integrate new or conflicting information as the scenario progressed and further suggests that a successful SHP performance is unlikely to be negatively impacted by a single isolated act of unprofessionalism.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Turner, Timothy Robert, Jr.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mark Scerbo
• Ivan Ash
• James Bliss
• Gayle Gliva-McConvey

• Clinical evaluation
• Clinical simulation
• Medical simulation
• Medical training
• Simulated patient
• Standardized patient
• Cognitive Psychology
• Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Social Psychology

Statement dc:rights

• <p>In Copyright. URI: <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).</p>

Identifier

9781303997136

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.odu.edu:psychology_etds-1180