Introduction
Respiratory therapy (RT) is an allied health specialty that provides therapeutic and diagnostic services to patients with cardiopulmonary disorders. Around 119 thousand respiratory care jobs held in 2010, with expected increasing up to 143,000 by 2020 based on United States Department of Labor (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). According to the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (COARC), there are 451 academic programs, which accredits respiratory care programs at Associate, Baccalaureate, and Master’s degree levels in the United States. Respiratory care as career has growth from basic responsibilities (Breathing treatment and oxygen therapy) to multiple duties that cover therapeutic and diagnostic …show more content…
CoBGRTE: The Coalition for Baccalaureate and Graduate Respiratory Therapy Education is an organization to help students, faculty, and the general public learn about baccalaureate and graduate respiratory therapy education in the United States of America.
Assumptions
The following assumptions will be used in this study:
1. Students’ evaluations of clinical instructors are used frequently and are generally considered valid measures (Hassan, 2009; Raingruber & Bowles, 2000; Zimmerman & Westfall, 1988).
2. Identifying and encouraging the qualities, characteristics, behaviors and actions that contribute to the clinical success of the students is important (Ingrassia, 2011).
3. Effective clinical instruction requires outstanding characteristics to promote learning.
Limitations
This study will be restricted by several reasons. First, the sample will be selected from Saudi universities only. Second, the number of participants enrolled in this study cannot be generalized across all the programs across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Chapter 3
Methodology …show more content…
Thus, it necessary to attain the author’s permission to allow use of the survey instrument. After obtaining the permission of use, the survey will be modified using Q-sort method to describe the respiratory therapy students’ and clinical instructors perceptions of effective teaching characteristics according to undergraduate respiratory therapy (BSRT) and clinical instructors.
The instrument for this study consisted of two sections, demographic and the survey instrument (See Appendix B). Section I, the demographic section consisted of fill in the blank and circled items regarding age, number of clinical courses completed, gender, academic level in the program, educational level, and ratio of students to clinical instructor. Section II, the survey adapted and modified from the ECICI consists of 35-items of clinical instructor characteristics divided into three sub-scales. The sub-scales are professional competence with 15 statements, relationship with students consisted of 8 statements, and personal attributes with 12 statements. A four point, Likert scale ranging from 1 (unimportant) to 4 (most important) was used to assess respondents perceived level of importance of each clinical instructor