The effectiveness of a mobile application for the development of palpation and ultrasound imaging skills to supplement the traditional learning of physiotherapy students.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Copper (Supplement) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a mobile application, as a supplement to traditional learning, is useful for physiotherapy students in the acquisition of palpation and ultrasound skills in the shoulder area.

Objective structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) and multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) were used to assess the educational intervention.

Why It Was Studied

Mobile learning (m-learning) has becoming very popular in education due to the rapidly advancing technology in their society.

The potentials of the mobile applications should be used to enhance the education process.

Who Took Part

They were randomly distributed into two groups: experimental, with free access to the mobile application; and control, with access to traditional learning materials on the topic.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and single-blind study.

Because people in this Copper (Supplement) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Only one side, usually the participants, was kept unaware of whether Copper (Supplement) was given.

Forty-nine students participated in this single-blinded, randomized controlled study.

Then, the researchers also assessed the time taken to get a reliable ultrasound image and to localize a specific shoulder structure by palpation.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Attitude of Health Personnel, Clinical Competence, Computer-Assisted Instruction, Curriculum, Education, Medical, Undergraduate, Educational Measurement and Mobile Applications.

The authors tagged it with the keywords M-learning, Physical therapy and Teaching/learning strategies.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and single-blind study of Copper (Supplement).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2016 (BMC medical education), a journal based in England.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.