Thesis (MTech( Education)) -- Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 1996 / Clinical technology as a profession has been part of the rapid development of modem
medical technology in South Africa. From the start the training of clinical technologists
consisted of practical in-service training at an academic hospital and a theoretical
component completed at a technikon. Questions about the standard of training of clinical
technologists have often been raised by members of the profession. An initial opinion
pole amongst recently qualified clinical technologists about the evaluation of their
theoretical knowledge and practical skills showed that they were not certain what they
were tested for in the examinations, or what the practical year mark was awarded for at
the end of their experiential training. The question thus arose whether the evaluation of
theoretical knowledge and practical skills were really appropriate and relevant.
In order to investigate validity of the training process, namely the 'evaluation of clinical
technology students, three literature studies were conducted. The first was to determine
what acceptable evaluation practice is as regards the evaluation of theoretical content
and practical skills. It was apparent from the literature that the inclusion of learning
objectives should be the norm for effective goal orientated training and evaluation.
The second literature study was conducted to determine the validity of the evaluation of
clinical technology students. As a result of this literature study a description was made of
the task of professions in the USA similar to clinical technology, the health worker in
general and the profession of clinical technology specifically. From this task description
it was apparent that the evaluation of clinical technologists' skills should not just include
knowledge, comprehension and application, but that one should also test for analysis,
synthesis and evaluation.
The third literature study conducted was to determine whether Bloom's taxonomy for
cognitive objectives could be used to provide a measure of the validity of test items. As
a result of this literature study a classification of test items from final year papers was
done to determine the cognitive level on which questions were formulated.
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This analysis of test items showed that questions were mainly formulated on the
knowledge level and did not provide for higher order skills as demanded by the task
analysis of the clinical technologist.
Referring to the evaluation of practical skills an analysis of the methods used by trainers
to award the practical yearmark showed that training and evaluation are not being
performed in an effective goal orientated manner. The reason is that trainers do not use
training objectives for the development of cognitive, psychomotor and affective skills of
students.
The conclusion is made that performance evaluation of the theoretical content and
practical skills of clinical technology students do not satisfy the criteria of validity. To
improve the training and evaluation practice, it is recommended that training objectives
for theoretical content and practical skills are formulated, that practical performance tests
are designed, and that attention is given to the improvement of the training and
evaluation skills of trainers and examiners.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:cput/oai:localhost:20.500.11838/1891 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Human, Hans Jurie |
| Publisher | Cape Technikon |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | Other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/za/ |
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