Technology-based teaching to support health students’ clinical skills in stroke recovery: a scoping review

TL;DR

This review explores how technology-based teaching can help health students develop clinical skills for stroke recovery, with a focus on potential benefits for rural areas.

Contribution

The study identifies facilitatory features of technology-based teaching for health students in stroke recovery and highlights a gap in rural applications.

Findings

Most studies focused on medical, physiotherapy, or nursing students in educational settings.

Key facilitators included multimedia design, skill practice, and feedback in technology-based teaching.

Only one study addressed rural student-resourced stroke services using technology.

Abstract

Rural stroke survivors face barriers to accessing rehabilitation, and the challenge is likely to grow as acute medical advances improve survival rates. Student-resourced services are used to support urban stroke rehabilitation, and there is growing interest in the use of technology-based teaching approaches to enable health student skill development. There is potential for technology-based student teaching techniques to support rural stroke rehabilitation capacity, but this is currently unexplored. This scoping review aimed to understand the characteristics of technology-based teaching techniques that support health students to develop clinical skills for stroke recovery.

The PRISMA-ScR approach guided a comprehensive search of five databases and grey literature. Studies were included if the participants were health students who engaged in technology-based teaching activities of less than 12 hours’ duration, addressing clinical skills relevant to stroke recovery. Studies from all geographical, clinical, and educational contexts were considered, irrespective of study design. Nine data elements were summarised descriptively, and content analysis was applied to describe facilitators of technology-based teaching, using an inductive approach.

Forty-eight studies were included in the review. Studies were predominantly published in the last 5 years (54%), were of lower methodological quality (69%), and featured medical (43%), physiotherapy (27%) or nursing students (27%) in educational (71%) - not clinical - settings. Features of technology-based approaches were identified as facilitators of teaching and learning: online or face-to-face delivery, engaging multimedia design, clinical skill practice and interaction or feedback. Only one paper demonstrated the use of technology-based teaching approaches in a rural, student-resourced stroke service.

The identified facilitatory features can inform the design of a technology-based learning approach for student-resourced stroke rehabilitation, ensuring alignment with teaching and learning theories, defined student learning outcomes and the needs of stroke survivors. Implications for rural services are unclear. Research is warranted to explore the gap in technology-based learning for rural student-resourced stroke rehabilitation services.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-026-08709-7.

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