The osteopathic clinical experience was evaluated using the modified nominal group technique.
11 As described by Dobbie et al,
11 this evaluation technique elicits positive and negative feedback from participants in an inclusive and nonjudgmental atmosphere in which each participant contributes equally to the feedback.
The first step in the process is to present evaluation questions to the respondents—in this case, the osteopathic residents. The following two questions were used to elicit feedback on our curriculum: (1) What are the strengths of the osteopathic clinic? And (2) what are the clinic's weaknesses or your suggestions for improvement? Second, each group member silently wrote down their five personal responses to each question. Third, with the whole group, the items were pooled, clarified, and edited into themes, with the most popular items listed first. Then, from the pooled list, each group member ranked their top responses. In the present study, participants were asked to rank their top five items, awarding 5 points to the most important item, 4 points to the next, and so forth down to one. Finally, points were tallied, resulting in a rank-ordered, weighted list of the group's collective opinions.
Success of the educational activities was based on whether osteopathic residents were able to obtain AOA approval of their first postgraduate year.