Delivering Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Remotely: Educators’ Views and Perspectives During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

Abstract

Many Clinical Pastoral Education programs pivoted to remote delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our survey explored educators’ preparedness, self-efficacy, and views regarding remote Clinical Pastoral Education. Few respondents were either very (14.2%) or not at all (16.5%) prepared. Most were confident facilitating remote learning (69.8%–88.5%), believing remote Clinical Pastoral Education can achieve outcomes equivalent to in-person (59.1%). Six qualitative themes emerged: educator development, educator challenges, remote Clinical Pastoral Education efficacy, remote group dynamics, clinical practice/supervision implications, and benefits and opportunities.

Chaplain Development in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in Healthcare Settings in England: A Mixed Methods Study

“…Finally, participants reported positive student experiences while acknowledging the challenging aspects of the CPE course structure: balancing the demands of CPE and their work responsibilities, the course's pace, and in-person and online interactions. Parallel to participants' opinions on online and in-person CPE learning, CPE educators and students the USA reported certain benefits of online or hybrid modalities: ensuring access to CPE; not reducing the quality of learning; and being as effective as inperson CPE [42][43][44]. However, they desired more in-person interaction and found online learning not without limitations [42,43].…”

“…Parallel to participants' opinions on online and in-person CPE learning, CPE educators and students the USA reported certain benefits of online or hybrid modalities: ensuring access to CPE; not reducing the quality of learning; and being as effective as inperson CPE [42][43][44]. However, they desired more in-person interaction and found online learning not without limitations [42,43].…”

The Human Teacher, the AI Teacher and the AIed-Teacher Relationship

“…Administrative tasks like applying for assessment extensions were expected to be undertaken by AI (Zawacki-Richter et al, 2019). However, learners in online learning still fully expect their teachers to perform pastoral care tasks in the online learning environment (Szilagyi et al, 2022) and still turn to them for such support (Spears & Green, 2022). Although AI has advanced significantly in performing many teaching tasks, pastoral care tasks are still expected to be conducted by human teachers/counselors by students (Im & Ham, 2020).…”