The Impact of Instructor Expertise and Competency on Student Learning and Strategies for Improvement

Context Paradoxes exist in athletic training education. Practicing athletic trainers must be able to demonstrate competency in the knowledge, skills, and abilities that span the scope of practice. To supervise students preparing to be athletic trainers, preceptors must be credentialed to practice and meet continuing education requirements across the scope of practice. However, to teach students in the classroom/lab settings, athletic training faculty must be “qualified through professional preparation and experienced in their respective academic areas as determined by the institution,” “be recognized by the institution as having instructional responsibilities,” and must “incorporate the most current athletic training knowledge, skills, and abilities as they pertain to their respective teaching areas.” These requirements then help to prompt the question of how to transition athletic training educators from competent professionals who are clinical generalist to experts in both the content and clinical skills they are required to teach. Objective To describe the differences between expert and novice teachers, as well as the impact of content expertise on athletic training student learning. Suggestions for improving content expertise and teaching expertise also will be discussed. Background Distinct differences exist in not only the methods used but also the learning outcomes of novice versus expert faculty. Faculty who have both content and clinical expertise in the areas that they teach are able to maximize student learning by making connections within and across content areas, as well as understand and adapt to their learners. Lacking this foundational background, novice teachers spend much of their limited planning time learning required content or trying to create appropriate ways to teach that content. While students are able to recognize differences between expert and novice teachers and learn despite the effectiveness of the teacher, learning is better and at greater depths when the teachers are more expert.