Computerized ontology methods for teaching musculoskeletal topics to physical therapy students

Medical informatics technology is advocated by the American Medical Informatics Association and the International Medical Informatics Association as a better way to provide knowledge skills to healthcare providers by implementing better medical data and knowledge management. Although the 'lecture' method is the most traditional form of teaching in higher education, active learning techniques have been shown to be more effective as they require students be actively engaged in the learning process. As part of this dissertation research, computerized ontologies were used as a form of active learning. In medical informatics, ontologies are data models that define medical concepts and the relationships among those concepts. This dissertation analyzed whether ontologies could be effectively used as an active learning activity to teach physical therapy students. The dissertation consisted of three projects: 1 Develop a computerized ontology for physical therapy students, 2.Provide physical therapy students with an opportunity to instantiate the ontology into a computerized form, and 3. Compare three modes of teaching - lecture with an active learning activity, lecture with the computerized ontology as the active learning activity, and using the computerized ontology as the only teaching method. The developed computerized ontology was used to teach musculoskeletal topics to physical therapy students. Key concepts for the ontologies were derived from the curriculum of the Physical Therapy Education Department at Rockhurst University. In the development process, the computerized modules were set up in a manner that allowed future use on other topics. The computerized physical therapy ontology performed very well as an active learning application. Students enjoyed instantiating the ontologies and using them to learn physical therapy concepts. In addition, the students who used the computerized ontologies, performed as well or better, academically, than those who used other learning methods. As a consequence, it can be argued that ontologies should be used more frequently in physical therapy education and perhaps as a teaching method and learning activity for other healthcare professionals. Careful searching of the literature shows that this dissertation work is groundbreaking in uniting the fields of medical informatics and physical therapy, and future development promises to be exciting.