Clinical-year veterinary students are most likely to be confident and competent in calving procedures after blending simulator practicals with videos

Q: What learning methods were compared in the study?

Fourth-year veterinary students were assigned to lectures (LEC), computer-assisted learning videos (CAL), a high-fidelity simulator practical (SIM), or a blend of CAL and SIM (CAL&SIM).

Q: How were student confidence and competence measured?

Students rated confidence in 13 individual calving tasks before and after teaching, then underwent skill testing via internal or external/peer/technical OSCE assessors for competence.

Q: Which training approach produced the best overall outcomes?

Blending CAL with SIM produced the highest odds of being “confident/very confident” and passing the OSCE, with smaller positive effects on competence noted for experience and baseline confidence.

Sep 28, 2026

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Background: Veterinary students need safer practice of calving scenarios, but the effects of a high-fidelity calving simulator (SIM) practical and/or videos (computer-assisted learning, CAL) on confidence (CONF) and competence (COMP) are unknown. Methods: Fourth-year students received CAL, SIM, CAL+SIM, or lectures and were assessed with task-based pre/post confidence scoring and subsequent OSCE skill testing. Results: Practical exposure improved cumulative CONF, and videos improved OSCE pass rates; CAL+SIM showed highest odds for confident/very confident and OSCE passing. Conclusions: Best preparation blends simulator videos with practical training.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Introduction

Training gap for new graduates

Confidence and competence

Current teaching approaches and simulators

Rationale for blended learning

DOI: 10.1002/vetr.5774 ORIGINAL RESEAR CH Clinical-year veterinary students are most likely to be conﬁdent and competent in calving procedures after blending simulator practicals with videos Jayne Orr 1 Robert F. Kelly2 Monika Mihm Carmichael 1 1 Scottish Centre for Production Animal Health and Food Safety, School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK 2Division of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and the Roslin Institute, Midlothian, UK Correspondence Jayne Orr, Scottish Centre for Production Animal Health and Food Safety, School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Email: [Jayne.orr@glasgow.ac.uk](Jayne.orr@glasgow.ac.uk) Funding information Masters of Veterinary Education for JO Abstract Background: Veterinary students require safer practice of calving scenarios; however, the effects ofa high-ﬁdelity calving simulator (SIM) practical and/or videos (computer-assisted learning [CAL]) on student calving conﬁdence (CONF) and competence (COMP) are unknown. Methods: Fourth-year veterinary students received no teaching beyond previous lectures (LEC, n = 60), CAL ( n = 59), SIM ( n = 96) or CAL&SIM ( n = 85) . Students scored their CONF in 13 individual calving tasks before and after teaching delivery and were subsequently skill tested by internal (faculty) or external/peer/technical OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) assessors (non-faculty) . Results: Higher cumulative CONF scores required practical exposure (SIM 42.3 [95% conﬁdence interval, CI 40.9–43.8], CAL&SIM 44.3 [95% CI 42.8–45.7] vs. LEC 33.3 [95% CI 31.2–35.5] and CAL 35.4 [95% CI 33.5–37.4]; p < 0.05), while videos already improved the OSCE pass rate (CAL 73%, SIM 84%, CAL&SIM 87% vs. LEC 40%; p < 0.05) . Blending CAL&SIM achieved the highest odds of students being ‘conﬁ dent/very conﬁdent’ (odds ratio [OR] 18.5, p < 0.001) and passing the OSCE (OR 11.8, p < 0.001) with smaller positive effects of experience and baseline conﬁdence on CONF or non-faculty assessors on COMP (OR 2‒4, p < 0.01) . Limitations: Beneﬁts of improved student CONF and COMP in real-life calving scenarios are likely but unknown. Conclusions: Best preparation for managing calving scenarios is blending simulator videos with the practical. KEYWORDS blended learning, calving, cow, simulator, student, veterinary INTRODUCTION New graduates in farm animal practice are expected to attend an out-of-hour call to calve a cow with no immediate support, and pressure for a successful outcome. However, only 19% of graduates indicated that they could execute a delivery, and it took the new graduates 10 months to execute obstetrics without supervision.1 The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), along with many other veterinary programme accrediting bodies, describes attending an animal inan emergency as a DayOne (graduate) competence,2–5 and farm animal practitioners in the UK also regard‘assessing an obstetrical problem’ and ‘using a calving jack to deliver a calf’ as important skills.6 Clearly, thereis a mismatch between what is expected from new graduates by practitioners, and what competences in bovine obstetrics graduates are equipped with. Thus, research into the optimum way to teach calving skills is needed. While skill acquisition leading to competence is crucial, the appropriate level of conﬁdence required by a student or new graduate to carry out a calving has not yet been established. Conﬁdence is a judgement This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s) . Veterinary Record published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Veterinary Association. that inﬂuences whether an individual is willing (or not) to undert

FAQs

What learning methods were compared in the study?

Fourth-year veterinary students were assigned to lectures (LEC), computer-assisted learning videos (CAL), a high-fidelity simulator practical (SIM), or a blend of CAL and SIM (CAL&SIM).

How were student confidence and competence measured?

Students rated confidence in 13 individual calving tasks before and after teaching, then underwent skill testing via internal or external/peer/technical OSCE assessors for competence.

Which training approach produced the best overall outcomes?

Blending CAL with SIM produced the highest odds of being “confident/very confident” and passing the OSCE, with smaller positive effects on competence noted for experience and baseline confidence.

Sep 28, 2026

Upload by Fahsai