The ePortfolio presents itself as potentially a highly useful assessment tool for students, encouraging self-reflection and the development of both clinical skills and theoretical knowledge by students identifying strengths and gaps in knowledge. A survey of students after the completion of the inaugural Emergency Health ePortfolio program revealed several strengths and weaknesses of the ePortfolio as an assessment tool of paramedicine students. The ePortfolio format was perceived by many students to encourage reflection and help them recognise areas where improvement was required. Certain students struggled to accurately identify the volume of information and concepts that should be covered while collating the ePortfolio which caused a degree of stress for some. The online format was another point of contention for students, with some enjoying the freedom of online education while others struggled to integrate multimedia components into their ePortfolios. The overarching student response was favourable and encouraged further implementation of the ePortfolio tool into the education of paramedicine students. This paper concludes that the ePortfolio has the potential to be a powerful assessment and more importantly education tool if development of the concept is continued into the future.
Understanding the occupational typological nature of nursing and paramedicine and the typological preferences of these within the professions offers significant evidence of factors that can facilitate wellbeing and efficiencies. Arksey and O'Malley's five‐stage scoping methodology was used to review the literature. The research question used to guide this scoping review was: Which Holland code is more dominant among nurses and paramedics? Nine articles were included in this review, from which two broad themes emerged: Job satisfaction/academic success; and personality‐employment fit across gender and subgroups within the same occupation. While the Social (S) personality type dominated across the studies for both nurses and paramedics, overall, the studies identified various combinations of the personality profile and, in some cases, personality types foreign to the occupation also formed part of the Holland code. Congruence can be thought of as playing an important role in nurses’/paramedics’ overall well‐being regardless of the order of their three dominant personality types.
Holland's RIASEC typology is a classification of vocational personality types and work environments. Having a predisposition for their vocation, in terms of a personality that is congruent to their work environment, may be protective for paramedics with regards to both their mental and physical health. The purpose of this study was to identify paramedicine students' vocational preference according to Holland's RIASEC model. Bachelor of Paramedicine degree students in the three different year levels completed the 48-item Brief RIASEC Marker Scales to determine their order of the six RIASEC personality types. In this study, the paramedicine students' three most dominant personality types were Social-Investigative-Artistic, differing from the defined Holland Occupational Code for paramedics of Realistic-Social-Investigative.Male students scored significantly higher on the Reality personality type, whereas female students scored significantly higher on the Social personality type. Overall, this study found many students to possess two of the three dominant personality traits that form the desired Holland code for paramedics. This suggests that many students may be better able to cope with the demands of the paramedicine profession upon employment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.