Training to facilitate social interference competency

What is it about?

Although the issue of evaluating competencies is multifaceted and remains largely unresolved, it is evident that students who are dismissed from doctoral training programs are often viewed as having competency deficits. Moreover, competency deficits ultimately pose a public health risk. As such, the study of competency is widely cited as a highly important area. Among well-articulated competency benchmarks, the relationship domain implicates social inference as an essential component to pre-practicum competency in interpersonal relationships, affective skills, and expressive skills. The current study built upon a small existing literature in the area of medical education indicating that the exploration of artwork can be used to improve skill in making clinically relevant visual observations. Using a posttest only, randomized design, results from the current study revealed that exploration of emotion as depicted in artwork significantly improved social inference of complex emotional states as measured by the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Implications for education and training as well as suggested future directions for research are presented.

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