Exploring Technology Integration in Canadian Athletic Therapy Education

There are many potential educational goals for using digital technologies in health professional education programs. Previous studies have suggested that technology can be used in these settings to facilitate knowledge acquisition, improve clinical decision making, improve psychomotor skill coordination, and practice rare or critical scenarios. However, when using technology for educational purposes, many educators do not consider the resulting pedagogical implications of using these tools to teach course content. The purpose of this study was to explore this phenomenon in a sample of athletic therapy educators, by investigating their views and attitudes towards using digital technologies in athletic therapy specific courses. Researchers used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach (via questionnaire and individual interviews) to explore this topic. It was found that the majority of athletic therapy educators in this sample (n = 21) did not in fact consider the pedagogical implications of technology integration and moreover used technology in rudimentary fashions (e.g., to deliver course content or to provide additional context to explain a topic). Conversely, those educators with higher levels of pedagogical and technological knowledge appeared to use technology in more constructive ways while considering the pedagogical impact of their technology integration decisions. Although this study focused on athletic therapy education, the findings are not unique to this discipline. Carefully designed, pedagogically-sound technologies have very specific and useful ways of empowering learning and have the potential to achieve many educational goals for any educator.