Affiliation:
1. Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions Health Sciences, Provo, UT
2. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb
3. University of Lynchburg, VA
4. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Abstract
Context
As athletic training education transitions to a professional master's degree, understanding the perceptions professional master's athletic training students have of athletic training is important.
Objective
To examine second-year professional master's students' perceptions of the athletic training profession, a career in the profession, and identify the factors that influence their perceptions.
Design
Convergent mixed methods.
Setting
Online surveys and individual phone interviews.
Patients or Other Participants
A total of 80 second-year professional master's students (63 female, 13 male, 4 no response, age = 24.63 ± 2.29 years), who were enrolled in the final semester of their program in the spring of 2019, completed the online survey. Ten survey respondents completed the follow-up phone interviews.
Data Collection and Analysis
A survey instrument and a semistructured interview guide were developed to answer the research questions. Both were validated externally by 3 independent researchers using a content-validity indexing tool. The data from the survey and interviews were woven together and merged to provide 1 comprehensive results section. Trustworthiness was established using triangulation, member checks, memos, and peer debriefing.
Results
Three higher-order themes emerged from the data: (1) perceptions of the athletic training profession: lack of appreciation and awareness for the profession from others, rewarding profession, and dynamic profession; (2) perceptions of a career in athletic training: low pay, long hours and inconsistent schedules, and inability to have work-life balance; (3) factors influencing perceptions: clinical experiences and interactions with athletic trainers.
Conclusions
Second-year professional master's athletic training students developed positive and negative perceptions about the profession and a career in the profession during their professional education experiences. The factors identified were professional socializing agents and should be considered when designing clinical education experiences.
Publisher
Journal of Athletic Training/NATA
Reference37 articles.
1. Merton
RK,
Reader
G,
Kendall
PL,
eds.
The Student Physician: Introductory Studies in the Sociology of Medical Education. Harvard University Press;
1957:
xii, 360.
2. Cohen
HA.
The Nurse's Quest for Professional Identity
.
Boston, MA:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co;1981.
3. Pitney
WA,
Ilsley
P,
Rintala
J.
The professional socialization of certified athletic trainers in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I context.
J Athl Train.
2002;
37(1):
63–
70.
4. Pitney
WA.
The professional socialization of certified athletic trainers in high school settings: a grounded theory investigation.
J Athl Train.
2002;
37(3):
286–
292.
5. Klossner
J.
The role of legitimation in the professional socialization of second-year undergraduate athletic training students.
J Athl Train.
2008;
43(4):
379–
385.
doi:10.4085/1062-6050-43.4.379
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献