Clinical experience's role in professional socialization as perceived by entry-level athletic trainers

Clinical experiences are integral to the education process in many professions. Professional socialization is one area of students' development enhanced by clinical experience. Professional socialization includes learning in the affective domain by experiencing moral, ethical and legal practice as well as developing confidence in students' clinical practice. This study examined the role of clinical experience for professional socialization in Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) accredited athletic training education programs. This was done by examining entry-level athletic trainers' perceptions of the importance of four common clinical experiences in the development of selected affective domain educational competencies. These experiences were peer practice, approved clinical instructor (ACI) instruction, practice coverage and game coverage. The affective domain competencies were chosen because they included aspects of professional socialization such as role identity and moral ethical and legal practice of athletic training. A quantitative, researcher developed, web based survey was designed and used to collect perception data from newly certified athletic trainers who had graduated from a CAAHEP accredited athletic training education program. While all four common clinical experiences were reported as important to subject mastery of the competencies, ACI instruction and practice coverage were reported to be more important than both peer practice and game coverage. These results are important to athletic training educators as they try to develop the best possible combination of classroom, laboratory and clinical experience to better prepare future generations of confident and successful practicing athletic trainers.