JCPSLP Vol 23 No 3

occasion the reflective experiences of the UPEs were required. A phenomenological approach was therefore adopted to explore the UPEs’ perspectives of their experience of this creative placement approach using critical reflection as the method of inquiry. The exploration of “being” in the world of a UPE is important to give voice to, in order to uncover, support and develop placement educators’ lived experiences (Frechette et al., 2020) of clinical education. This essence of the experience is comprised of both subjective and objective realities, including thoughts, perceptions, and feelings. For a UPE, this aligns with critical reflective practice (West, 2010) and, in seeking to answer the question “Did it work?”, we are tentatively working within a realist evaluation. Ethical approval was therefore sought and obtained from the Plymouth Marjon University’s Ethics Committee (EP148) to explore the reflections of the UPEs. Following the conclusion of the formative placement, each UPE wrote and shared a single reflective account with the lead author addressing the following prompts. Prompts for the reflective accounts: 1. How did you feel that your particular rotation went? 2. Were there any critical incidents upon which you reflected? 3. What was significant about the events? 4. What changes might you make to subsequent case- based learning, or future clinical placements? Due to other staff commitments, these reflections were collected over a period of six months. No further instructions were given to shape the reflective writing and, unsurprisingly, different approaches to the exercise were taken and were not seen to detract from the content of the accounts. Given the nature of reflection as a highly individualised, subjective and personal pursuit, as expected, each staff member raised different points based on their unique perspective as a UPE working in this environment. After analysis by the lead and one other author, some shared perspectives emerged from the data which will be explored below. Perspective 1. Reflecting on realism: simulated and virtual versus face-to-face placements While the research exploring the role of CSLE continues to emerge, workplace learning for the traditional acquisition of professional and clinical skills in real world environments with live clients continues to present an obvious authentic and undeniably important experience. Immersion within a clinical or real-world setting affords a community of practice whereby learning through participation and interaction with others is profound (Stewart, 2013). One UPE contemplated that: “Perhaps the group (or community) aspect of the simulated placement could be seen to replace or compensate for the lack of real or live players”. Another UPE reflected: Working in a clinic is dynamic; there are clients and carers to welcome, cups of tea to be made, clients needing to access the toilet and so on; it’s a social situation to manage as well as all the theory and technical bits. UPEs view workplace clinics as providing a multitude of rich and varied tasks that are intrinsically useful, where students invest effort and high engagement to achieve deep and lasting learning. In this real-world context, the activities should be perceived by both students and staff as faithful to the discipline of SLP. Students are asked to form

In our creative placement we used computer simulation (as opposed to virtual or human) which used a pre-existing online resource as the most immediate and suitable method of delivering clinical education. The university purchased access to Simucase ® prior to this placement as part of the institution’s response to the pandemic. This platform had been carefully selected by the teaching team for its use of real client data and video, allowing for an optimal realistic experience. Due to pandemic restrictions on social movement in place at the time, the placement was conducted via the same online videoconferencing platform students and staff had been successfully working with, within university-based teaching for the previous six months. Our creative placement design In addition to our normal academic roles and responsibilities, the team of six UPEs constructed a clinical education placement for 20 final year students that used Simucase ® (Ondo et al., 2020) at its core, and was supervised by registered and practising SLP staff. All six UPEs were female with an average of 25 years of clinical placement supervision experience and 15 years of academic experience. The third and final year of the current Bachelor of Science SLP program included two placements—the first of which was one day a week across seven weeks in the autumn term. This was replaced by the computer-simulated learning environment (CSLE). The placement consisted of two days per clinical specialism; each student completed three different specialisms plus a final day for feedback and formative assessment. Students worked in the same small groups of three or four throughout. Each participating UPE selected a client based on their clinical specialism/s (motor neurone disease, dysfluency, aphasia, speech sound disorders, language disorders, and cerebral palsy including AAC) and the availability of an appropriate case in Simucase ® (Ondo et al., 2020). The clinical groups represented covered developmental and acquired disorders across both adults and children, however, as with traditional in- person placements, not all students had the opportunity within this placement to see all client groups. Learning opportunities were tailored to the placement competencies and organised across the day to included structured opportunities for individual, peer and educator supervised working (see appendices 1 and 2 for details). A mapping exercise was undertaken to ensure that each individual student would have opportunity to provide evidence towards each competency across the three rotations, thus alleviating the need for each two-day cycle to provide all experiences. Each UPE constructed the two days of content differently; for example, the case of 9-year-old Jordan, although being recommended for an augmentative and alternative communication aid assessment, presented an opportunity for the students to discuss how they would assess her speech, language and communication needs in the context of education, conversation and identity formation. This approach triggered debates on the use and value of typical milestone information, language acquisition and the availability of assessment and intervention resources. Reflecting on the clinical placement Student feedback on their placement and learning experiences is routinely collected and reviewed, but on this

Philippa Knox (top), Dr Sally Bates (centre) and Jane Callard

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JCPSLP Volume 23, Number 3 2021

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