Description of Professional Master's Athletic Training Programs

Program Atmosphere

First, the majority of our participants noted the fact that they try to provide an atmosphere that fosters student success. Typically, the ATP directors explained that they try to provide individual attention to students as a way to develop relationships. One participant summarized this concept by describing the atmosphere the stakeholders in the program she leads try to foster for the athletic training students. She explained by stating,

I think the biggest strength [is] we're small enough that it's a very tight-knit, comfortable group. I've always described our program as being tough but fair and providing a family like environment. So we're really comfortable with our students, and I think they're very comfortable with not only the faculty, but the staff supervisors [preceptors] who they work with.

A similar sentiment was echoed by another PM ATP director. He explained that the individual attention the athletic training students in his program receive helps retain them.

Knowing that someone cares and is willing to help you reach your potential, I think, is always important. Knowing that even though there's a set standard, that there are multiple ways to reach the standard, and that we're willing, as faculty and staff, to use our experiences to help them see a better way that may help them find that success. I think all of that comes from that close relationship and that trust that we try to build.

Other participants used more specific examples of how the sense of closeness is established with athletic training students. First, 1 participant explained how faculty and preceptors both create an environment that breeds student success. She said,

Having that personal contact, they know somebody. . . it's that interaction that they're going to have with faculty who keep them here. It all boils down to the research that says it's the contact with faculty and having that personal connection. And I believe our students get that personal connection with both faculty and their preceptors.

A different participant really stressed how individual attention during clinical education can improve athletic training student excitement for the profession while explaining the ATP's strengths. She stated,

I think, again, that comes back to the low ratios. Because if you have two students in a rotation they get a lot more one-on-one [interaction] with a preceptor, but they also get a lot more opportunities to do things when patients are around. I think that's really important. Even when they're lower level students, I feel like when there's too many people there, a beginner student will just sit in the corner quietly and doesn't want to get in the way. As opposed to if there's only two students in a rotation, even if they're new, they'll get in there, and they'll watch closely, and they'll ask questions and maybe they'll even try.

Finally, 1 participant mentioned the relationships the athletic training students develop with their peers as being an important factor in persistence. He stated,

When they get here they know no one, so they have to sort of bond a little bit. I've always been amazed at the collegiality of the students from the very beginning and how they work together. I think when you have a sense of family that helps with wanting to stay and complete the program and be successful.

According to our participants, a strength of PM ATPs is the closeness and comfortable atmosphere they are able to foster due to the relationships built between athletic training students, preceptors, and faculty; a strength facilitating retention for the PM ATP.

Clinical Education

Our participants mentioned the clinical education experiences they provide for athletic training students as a strength. One participant explained that the preceptors involved in the ATP she leads make the experiences meaningful for athletic training students. She explained how they positively influence her athletic training students by being appropriate professional mentors. She stated,

I would say the other strengths of our program are our clinicals. Our clinical sites and our clinical faculty are excellent. So we've been able to cultivate relationships with athletic trainers in the community who are excellent role models and who are really interested in teaching students and being educators.

We noted a similar response from an ATP director who explained that the preceptors who mentor the athletic training students in his program understand the purpose of clinical education. He described how clinical education experiences are a strength by stating,

Another strength is that everyone involved in our program, whether it's faculty, on-campus staff or community preceptors, they have bought into the education piece. They [preceptors]—a lot of them are actually former students of ours, but they understand what we're trying to do here, and they've bought into being part of the education, not just having somebody around to help carry coolers and those kinds of things.

The clinical education experiences are often described as the students' favorite part of the curriculum. The following excerpt helps to explain why clinical education helps students integrate proficiencies and knowledge together to form more of a holistic approach to patient care. The ATP director replied,

They usually enjoy the clinical positions [of the ATP] better or the clinical courses better because it is so hands on. They get to connect with other people, not instructors, but supervisors, our preceptors. They really get to branch out. It helps to reinforce what they've learned in the classroom, but also show how very few things in athletic training fit the black and white of the book. I think it just eases their stress level somewhat to know that they can tweak something here and there and get a good result. Also, our clinical instructors are even more laid back, I think, than we are in the classroom, so they just create a very comfortable environment for the students.

The diversity of the clinical education sites was also viewed as important in clinical education offerings and discussed by 1 participant as her program's major strength. She explained the array of sites by responding,

Students really like the variety and the exposure that we require of them. So, for example, every student will do a collegiate rotation. Every student will do a high school rotation. Every student will do a clinic rotation, like a PT clinic or a physician extender—orthopedic physician office rotation. We go a little beyond the accreditation requirements, in that sense, so students really enjoy the fact that they get that much of a variety.

Our participants believed that the clinical education experiences they provide for their athletic training students are a major strength often due to the excellent preceptors who provide mentoring and act as appropriate professional role models.

Unique Experiences for Students

The final theme pertained to unique coursework or other ATP requirements that were distinctive or engaging. The elements of the PM ATPs that the directors mentioned were described as components perceived to be above and beyond what would be found at the undergraduate level. The first example explains experiences outside and inside of the classroom that athletic training students are able to experience. The PM ATP director explains the opportunities by stating,

They [athletic training students] do aseptic techniques, so they get scrub training. They're in the operating room with the orthopedic surgeons, and they are assisting with surgical procedures. We have a cadaver anatomy course. So they're getting one, sometimes two years if they want to come back and TA the second year, in human cadaver anatomy. [We also have a] health care finance class, so their fingers are always going to be on the pulse of what's going on with health care and the ever-changing [nature of health care legislation]. I think they're getting prepared and more marketable because of what they know about those things.

The perception articulated here is that rarely would an undergraduate student assist with surgical procedures. Besides this example associated with a clinical course, didactic experiences were also identified as being above and beyond the undergraduate level. For example, 1 participant explained that, in addition to upper and lower extremity assessment courses, “students take a radiology class, and I think that gives them a deeper understanding too, to help them with their evaluation and assessment.”

Finally, 1 participant described how a PM ATP allows for a deeper focus on injury prevention because of the research component they address in their program:

Then, finally. . . our research agenda for the last several years has been heavy in predictive modeling, Bayesian Analyses of Clinical Epidemiology, and I think that makes [our students] very, very marketable, because they can take now currently relevant research strategies to actually do injury prevention.

Our participants felt that the ATPs they lead offer experiences above and beyond those available at the undergraduate level via different learning opportunities. The unique learning opportunities advance the student's clinical practice due to the ability to offer these experiences.

Personnel Modifications

We also found 1 theme revolving around improvements the participants would like to make to the PM ATP they direct. Several participants mentioned personnel issues as causing difficulty within the ATP. The theme revolved around the need for additional faculty and staff/preceptors. One ATP director wanted to have a bigger presence in the clinical education experiences of the athletic training students, but could not due to the lack of faculty. She explained by stating,

We need more faculty. Full-time faculty is only me and one other person. That's it. So we have some ideas and things that we want to do that we just can't do because we don't have the manpower to do it. But because we're pretty low on full-time faculty, I think that in the clinical setting, our presence is not there like it needs to be. So, for example, me popping in, our clinical coordinator popping in and spending more time with the students and the preceptors, observing their interaction, giving them on-site, immediate feedback as to how they can improve and help strengthen the learning environment for the student in the clinical setting, that has definitely been a weakness, without a doubt.

A similar sentiment as far as the need for faculty was voiced by another participant. She had trouble providing students with the individual attention she would like. She discussed by stating,

Well, we need more faculty. It always comes down to that, especially in situations like this one. It's just me, so it's really hard for me to be all and do all for the students. So we need more faculty, I would say, is our biggest weakness.

Interestingly, several of our participants also brought up concerns over the clinical staff at the institution they work. The following excerpt describes the concern in detail, eluding to the fact that preceptors should be professional role models to athletic training students. One ATP director said,

I think the other improvement that I'd like to see—we have historically been a very good program, as far as retention of staff members from the clinical side. But in the past couple of years, our athletics department has shifted in such a way that now, there's more being asked of our staff, and we're starting to see some burnout. Our head athletic trainer just took another position. We lost a staff member last year who had 12 years of experience here at [institution name]. It wouldn't surprise me if we have another staff member in the next year or two who decides to leave because of burnout issues. That concerns me because I think that that certainly places some concern in the minds of the students about what the profession is like and what their longevity in the program may look like. It's one of the areas that I'd like to see if there's something, from an academic standpoint, that we can do to aid in the retention of our staff members. Because we have a lot of very good people in this program, and I don't want to lose them. . . I think the other thing [important in retaining quality students] is who the clinical instructor is and what type of behaviors they're modeling and whether or not the student feels that their clinical instructor actually enjoys the profession anymore. The interaction for clinical instructor is probably the single greatest influence that anyone has over the students in this program.

Likewise, another participant discussed the problem of staff turnover in a slightly different light. She was concerned about graduate students being supervised by young professionals with only slightly more experience. She said,

Probably the biggest problem is we've had a high turnover rate of clinical staff. We really have no authority or decision making ability of what goes on in the sports medicine department, but the high turnover rate, and their strategy has been to bring in either GA's who are recently certified, or new grads, and as a graduate ATP, I want our students learning from veterans, and not from people who really have a few more months experience than what our students do. That's a glaring weakness that, unfortunately, is out of our control. All we can do is express our concerns and hope the administration does something about it.

Personnel issues, mainly a lack of faculty and turnover among preceptors, were an area that most PM ATP directors wanted to improve. Unfortunately, decisions to ameliorate these concerns are often made by institutional administrators and may be slow to happen.