Students’ experiences of collaboration during and after an interprofessional training ward course: a mixed methods study

Objectives: The objective of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of how students experience and perceive interprofessional collaboration connected to their learning activities during and after an interprofessional clinical course. Methods: A sample of 15 healthcare students participating on a two-week interprofessional clinical course was used. A mixed method approach was used for data collection. The students’ perceptions were gathered several times a day via mobile phones by using the Contextual Activity Sampling System (CASS) and they were also interviewed after the course. Results: The data revealed an interesting discrepancy between the students’ learning experiences reported during the course compared to their perceptions after the course. The students were generally more critical during the course, i.e., they tended to report things that did not work well. In the post-course interviews, the students reported that difficulties had been solved during the course. The students emphasized also the importance of structure, interaction, and insights into one’s own and other professions’ tasks as a base for fruitful interprofessional collaboration. Furthermore, they underlined the benefits of interprofessional team learning with opportunities to contribute to and to acquire new knowledge. Conclusions: The CASS methodology provides possibilities to identify students’ and student teams’ needs of support to reach the intended learning outcomes of a specific course. Our results might be useful when developing clinical education with a special focus on supporting students in their collaborative practices.