Informing web-based communication curricula in veterinary education: A systematic review of web-based methods used for teaching and assessing clinical communication in medical education

Abstract

We determined the Web-based configurations that are applied to teach medical and veterinary communication skills, evaluated their effectiveness, and suggested future educational directions for Web-based communication teaching in veterinary education. We performed a systematic search of CAB Abstracts, MEDLINE, Scopus, and ERIC limited to articles published in English between 2000 and 2012. The review focused on medical or veterinary undergraduate to clinical-or residency-level students. We selected studies for which the study population was randomized to the Web-based learning (WBL) intervention with a post-test comparison with another WBL or non-WBL method and that reported at least one empirical outcome. Two independent reviewers completed relevancy screening, data extraction, and synthesis of results using Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick's.