W. David Carr

An Exploratory Study of Athletic Training Student Communication

Context: Employers have reported that the ability to communicate is the greatest deficiency of new athletic training graduates. New graduates must be able to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure the best health care of their patients. To date there have been no studies to determine which stakeholders the students are communicating with during clinical experiences. Objective: To investigate the opportunity to communicate with various stakeholders by students during their clinical experiences. Patients or Other Participants: Participants were 932 students (308 male, 624 female) from university athletic training programs. Data Collection and Analysis: The study used an online survey instrument that allowed students to recall which stakeholders they had the opportunity to communicate with during the prior week of their clinical experiences. Basic descriptive statistics were calculated to describe the study sample and a χ2 contingency table analysis was used to determine signific...