The Development of a Therapeutic Listening Instrument For Allied Health

Abstract

Occupational therapy education programs need a method for capturing student success in learning the necessary skills of therapeutic listening prior to fieldwork. There are no formalized instruments to measure therapeutic listening knowledge and skills in occupational therapy curriculums. Listening measurement tools that currently exist have been primarily created for other professionals in the medical field. Developing a listening instrument that measures the basic knowledge and skills of students' listening would benefit occupational therapy education programs by determining the need for additional listening training of its students. This thesis study describes a pilot study used to develop a therapeutic listening instrument. The Therapeutic Listening Instrument consisted of listening terminology and clinical scenarios composed of three domains of therapeutic listening to determine participants' application of listening knowledge. The instrument was piloted to experts, clinicians, and students. The results indicated that the instrument is not a reliable and valid tool to measure therapeutic listening. Data collected from the pilot study provided information for further development and refinement of the Therapeutic Listening Instrument.