Resource Library

This 25-page report details how the project team developed communication skills resources for those who teach professional skills modules for veterinary students.  If you are teaching veterinary students, either as a core lecturer or someone contributing to a module on professional skills, the Workbook that this team produced will be of the most help, and this report can give you additional confidence in using it.  The core team, who are from three universities, make a compelling case in this report for the value of the material to veterinary students.  It is evident that the authors have engaged someone who has a strong understanding of human communication and how to cultivate empathy with a client.  There is discussion of the theory of emotional intelligence and similar factors that one must understand to address deficits in student training that the report identifies in the literature and in surveys of students.  It is interesting to read about what their surveys found to be challenging in client consultations by male students but not as challenging by female students, and vice versa.    Evidence is provided documenting the impact of the learning activities developed in this project on students, and that should provide you with confidence and rationale for employing these materials, as alluded to above.  If you are not teaching veterinary students, and you are a lateral thinker, you could read into the efforts documented here how to create materials for your own discipline.  I was considering how useful some of the insights provided could be in creating teaching strategies to use with students in engineering, for example.  If you would like to understand the study results in depth, it would be handy to have a communication specialist to consult.   Note that not everything in this report will prove to be useful.  There is a collection of research outcomes and theoretical justifications that could be handy as background information, but they are not essential for employing the actual teaching materials, which are in the Workbook.