Kristie Matthews^1,2,3
Terry Haines^1,2
1 Monash University, School of Primary and Allied Health Care
2 National Centre for Healthy Ageing
3 Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

The Monash University Student Telehealth Program enables allied health students to practise person-centred health-coaching via telehealth with volunteers from the community. All students complete pre-learning and assessment online, including three occasions of scaffolded peer-peer student role-plays. 

176 students completed the Student Telehealth Program during 2021-2022. Students were provided with mock-participant scenarios on which to base their peer-peer telehealth role-play. The objective was for the student health practitioner to identify the health and wellbeing priorities and goals of the student playing the mock-participant. Afterwards, students completed a written self-reflection of their learning guided by the Driscoll reflective model(1). Qualitative content analysis of de-identified self-reflection submissions was undertaken to examine student learning and actions from completing progressive mock-telehealth interactions. 

Analysis revealed students used the reflective process to self-identify and pursue growth opportunities that aligned with the objectives of the program. Students expressed increasing confidence in delivering health-related communication using telehealth, in their ability to build rapport, and in clinical decision making. In their role as the mock-participant, students were able to reflect on and apply strategies for enhanced person-centred care delivery. 

Students were able to use a reflective framework to progressively identify learning needs and self-report improvement in applied skills. Although teacher facilitated reflective practice is commonly used in simulation-based education(2), this analysis shows the potential for student led reflection. This outcome furthers the position that assessment for learning is a beneficial approach to foster student-directed and student-centred learning(3). 

A scaffolded assessment for learning strategy using peer-peer role-play and self-reflection has enabled students to develop useful clinical skills in preparation for authentic telehealth interactions with community participants. 

Using repeated peer-peer role-play with self-reflection as an assessment for learning strategy can enable students to articulate their learning needs and apply actions for growth. 

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