Teaching and Evaluating Rehabilitation Case Management Skills Through Computer Simulations: Methodological Considerations

The use of computer simulations in professional rehabilitation counselling training has received considerable attention in recent years. Most notably, computer-based rehabilitation case management simulations have been developed for teaching and evaluating clinical problem solving skills of rehabilitation counselling trainees. However, a major problem confronting the use of computer simulations in professional rehabilitation training is the lack of quantification procedures for measuring performance on computer simulations. A current approach involves the computation of proficiency and efficiency indices as performance feedback measures. The purpose of this paper, however, is to demonstrate the potential problems with using these two indices as feedback mechanisms in computer simulations and to present an alternative quantification procedure for measuring and providing feedback about trainee performance on computer-based case management simulations.