Masters Thesis

Revisions to Solano CC Associates of Science Degree Program in Sports Medicine

The intent of this project was to renew the Solano Community College Associates of Science Degree Program in Sports Medicine curriculum to help athletic training students smoothly transfer over to an Athletic Trainer Education Program [ A TEP]. Athletic Trainers [ A Ts] are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians to take care of athletes and active individuals at every level of competition and across many workplace and recreational settings. Under the National Athletic Training Association [NATA], the profession's services encompass prevention, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions. In order to get certified as an Athletic Trainer, students must go through an A TEP program that provides the basic skills and knowledge to pass the Board of Certification for Athletic Trainers [BOC] Certification Examination. The Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education [CAA TE] certifies these university ATEP programs. The BOC conducts a Role Delineation/Practice Analysis [RD/PA] every 5 to 7 years. The RD/PA is used to establish a defined set of domains, tasks and associated knowledge and/skills necessary to carry out the responsibilities of the athletic trainer that are used by the BOC to develop the certification examination and by CAA TE to analyze the successful learning of students in A TEP programs. Since its inception 20 years ago, the Sports Medicine Program at Solano Community College has never been reviewed which leads to the important question; does Solano Community College's AS Sports Medicine Program adequately prepare their athletic training students to meet the necessary requirements to transfer into an ATEP program? For this project, I obtained information from the Program Directors of the 2 closest ATEP programs (1 public/ 1 private) on what they look for in successful applicants to their Junior-level entry Athletic Trainer programs. I analyzed our current class/ objectives structure, along with our internship program, to see which knowledges, skills and attributes [KSA's] that ATEP programs look for in a transferring student that we meet. I prepared curricular and internship revisions to our AS degree program that were submitted to the college administration revising our Associates of Science Degree Program in Sports Medicine to meet these KSA's. In doing this project, I learned the step-by-step process to keep an academic program up to date. I was able to collaborate and interact with administration that I would not have been able to meet without doing this project. Bringing the information together was tedious and if I didn't have a rubric to follow, I would have been lost completing the task. With revisions of the Program Review from my project group and Robert Gabriel, Dean of Health Sciences at Solano Community College, the final product was submitted to the Vice President of Academic Affairs to be used to update the Sports Medicine program at Solano College.

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