The instructional effectiveness of a web-based audiometry simulator.

With distance learning becoming more of a reality than a novelty in many undergraduate and graduate training programs, web-based clinical simulations can be identified as an instructional option in distance education that has both a sound pedagogical foundation and clinical relevance. The purpose of this article is to report on the instructional effectiveness of a web-based pure-tone audiometry simulator by undergraduate and graduate students in speech-language pathology. Graduate and undergraduate majors in communication sciences and disorders practiced giving basic hearing tests on either a virtual web-based audiometer or a portable audiometer. Competencies in basic testing skills were evaluated for each group. Results of our analyses of the data indicate that both undergraduate and graduate students learned basic audiometric testing skills using the virtual audiometer. These skills were generalized to basic audiometric testing skills required of a speech language pathologist using a portable audiometer.