Examining audiology students’ clinical reasoning skills with virtual audiology cases aided with no collaboration, live collaboration, and virtual collaboration

The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in clinical reasoning skills of students when using virtual audiology cases aided with no collaboration, virtual collaboration, and live collaboration. The theoretical framework discussed five major approaches that could explain this effect; Situated Learning Theory, Social Development Theory, Scaffolding, Collaborative Learning, and Cognitive Load Theory. A quasi-experimental design was conducted at two U.S. universities to examine whether there is a significant difference in clinical reasoning skills between the three treatment groups using IUP Audiosim software. The clinical reasoning data were analyzed using One-Way ANOVA, and Tukey HSD for ANOVA. The results indicated that there was a significant difference in clinical reasoning skills between the three treatment groups. Further analyses are shown in the body of the study.