The Impact of Active Learning in a Speech-Language Pathology Swallowing and Dysphagia Course

The signature pedagogy in Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) higher education programs has been criticized for its instructor-centric lecture format and emphasis on the lower tiers of Bloom’s taxonomy (simply memorizing knowledge) at the expense of helping students develop the clinical problem-solving skills required for a lifetime of practice and learning. The purpose of this study was to examine the responses of a cohort of graduate speech-language pathology students to an active learning-oriented swallowing and dysphagia course design. A potential relationship between student perceptions of the active learning pedagogy and academic performance was also explored. The results suggest that active learning positively impacted both student perceptions and performance in the redesigned swallowing and dysphagia course