"Allt jag gör lär jag mig ju av". En studie om kunskapskrav och kunnande i anslutning till audionomstudenters praktiska utbildning

Abstract

The audiologists´ knowledge-domain is generally described as a unique combination of medical, technical, social and behavioural sciences. It gives prominence to the importance of an adequate education relating to the knowledge-demands the students´encounter during their trainee-period. However, an important question is if the educational content corresponds to the knowledge-demands during the training? Aim: This study aimed to identify the knowledge-demands of students during their trainee-period. Furthermore, to identify how the students´ actual knowledge was related to the encountered knowledge-demands. Method: Seven students were interviewed twice during a ten weeks trainee-period in their fifth semester; the students also kept diaries. A content analysis of the collected data resulted in seven identified themes that were oriented towards the knowledge-demands and the students´actual knowledge. Twenty-four identified categories belongs to the identified themes. The themes were: administration and documentation, medical audiology, diagnostic audiology, technical audiology, social and behavioural audiology, communication and audiological problem solving. The results demonstrated a complex fusion of the different areas within audiology and highlighted the relation between the students´ knowledge-demands and actual knowledge. Mastering this complex fusion of knowledge between the different areas within the field of audiology is essential for the audiologist, both within aural diagnostic and rehabilitation. Conclusions: The students in this study had sufficient knowledge within diagnostic audiology as well within technical, psychological and pedagogical rehabilitative audiology. This indicates that the educational content corresponds to the knowledge-demands. The fusion of the different areas within the audiologists´ knowledge-domain is even more complex than earlier generally described.