Physical Therapy Education: The Feasibility of International Collaborative Assignments Using E-mail

Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Spring 2004 by Williams, Marie, Feldman, Robert

Background and Purpose. The Internet has made possible the free flow of ideas and information to an extent undreamed of just a decade ago. This project was developed to determine if the Internet could be readily used as a communication tool by two physical therapist education programs, located in two different countries, to bring together their students in a collaborative project examining each country's physical therapist practice and health care system. Method/Model Description and Evaluation. Eighty-four students from the University of South Australia and the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia participated in this project. Work was performed within small collaborative groups, with each group consisting of at least one student from each university. Each group was assigned one of five patient-based scenarios in order to develop patient goals as well as interventions to reach these goals. All students were invited to complete a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of the similarities and differences between the health care systems of the two countries and to compose an essay on which system was "best" at meeting the needs of their patient. Using a purpose-designed feedback questionnaire, students were surveyed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the collaborative project. Outcomes. A majority of the students indicated that collaborating with a student from another country on the same assignment was beneficial in terms of expanding knowledge, developing plans of care, and learning about another country's health care system. Discussion and Conclusion. Collaborative educational projects via the Internet between two geographically distant universities are both feasible and beneficial. As this form of learning evolves, it is anticipated that the percentage of students who experience difficulty exchanging information with their international partners will decline as they become increasingly facile using the computer as a communication tool. This will hopefully lead to additional international educational collaborative uses of the computer, perhaps in areas such as peer review and research.

Key Words: Collaborative learning, International, Internet.

INTRODUCTION

Collaborative learning is a powerful medium, especially where the context is personally or professionally engaging.1 While collaborative learning tasks commonly occur within face-to-face classroom contexts, advances in Web-based learning environments allow virtually limitless collaborative learning opportunities. Of all the online technologies, electronic mail (e-mail) is perhaps the most universally available and among the simplest and most economic to use.

E-mail provides an avenue for the dissemination of Information, submission of assignments, and communication between remote sites or between people whose workloads and schedules prevent group meetings. A number of studies have demonstrated the advantages and efficiency of e-mail as a teaching medium in fields such as computer engineering,2 contextual language practice,3 mcdicine,4-6 and developing international or cultural awareness.7,8

While e-mail has been used as a communication tool between students and educators, this tool not only enables collaborative work among students within the same course but also between similar courses in dillerent universities. Despite the widespread use of e-mail in both formal educational contexts and informal student contexts, there are relatively few published studies that have examined the application of this medium in the arena of collaborative teaching and learning. Reed and Mitchell9 reported on a collaborative learning project of interuniversity teams of geography students at the University of British Columbia and the University of Waterloo where collaboration was facilitated "through computer-assisted media, including e-mail, the Internet and video-conferencing."9(325) E-mail partnerships between American and Taiwanese or South African universities have been described as a way of collaboratively learning about English language and cultural differences.7,10

The aim of this article is to outline a process, describe the practicalities, and report on the student perceptions of undertaking an international, collaborative assignment between American and Australian students within physical therapist education programs.

Evolution of This Collaborative Learning Task

The University of South Australia (UniSA) aims to develop a number of qualities within graduates of all programs. One of these graduate qualities is that students will demonstrate an international perspective as a professional and as a citizen. The current collaborative learning task evolved from a previous learning task designed to assist physical therapist undergraduate students to develop an international perspective of their discipline area. The original task provided students with a patient scenario. The students were then required to locate (using the internet) and contact, by e-mail, an international physical therapist student or educator outside Australia or New Zealand and find out how an international colleague would manage this patient. Students were then asked to write a reflection paper presenting similarities or differences in patient management between their experience within the Australian health care system and the information provided by the international colleague.