An Exploratory Case Study: Examining the Design of Clinical Immersion from the Preceptors’ Perspective

Abstract

Context The clinical immersion experience is a key part of the socialization of the professional athletic training student. Clinical immersion offers the student the chance to experience the totality of the role of the athletic trainer. Programmatic autonomy allows many athletic training educators the opportunity to be creative in the implementation of clinical immersion(s). Objective Examine clinical immersion from the preceptors’ perspective to understand their opinions regarding the structure of the experience and preferences they may have surrounding clinical immersion structure. Design Qualitative exploratory case study design. Setting Individual one-on-one video-conference interview. Patients or Other Participants Eight athletic training preceptors (6 female, 2 male) completed one-on-one interviews and were 38 ± 6 years old with 10 ± 3 years of experience as a preceptor and 14 ± 7 years of experience as a certified athletic trainer. Data Collection and Analysis Semistructured interviews were conducted with all preceptors. Interviews were recorded and transcribed using a video-conferencing software. An iterative approach with principles of phenomenological research was used to code the data. Data saturation guided recruitment and cessation of new interviews. Basic member checks, reflexivity, and multiple analyst triangulation were used to determine trustworthiness. Results The following four major themes emerged: (1) preceptors prefer the clinical immersion experience to be longer than the minimum accreditation requirement, (2) preceptors prefer to supervise second-year students in the immersion experience, (3) immersion allows for meaningful relationship development between the preceptor and student, and (4) preceptors treat immersions as a transition to practice mechanism. Conclusions Preceptors perceived the clinical immersion experience to be a facilitator of strong preceptor-student relationships and a facilitator of transition to practice. They believed that the clinical immersion should be longer than 4 weeks and occur late in the athletic training curriculum.