Learning and utilization of generic skills by practitioners in the field of clinical laboratory science/medical technology.

Objective: To determine whether and to what extent generic skills that are learned by practitioners are used on their clinical laboratory science/medical technologist (CLS/MT) jobs; and to determine if there are any significant differences in learning and/or using these skills by practitioners who were CLS/MT vs. Other BA/BS degree majors.

Design: In the field (ITF) laboratory practitioners were surveyed as to whether or not they: 1) were CLS/MT program graduates; 2) utilized the following generic skills in their jobs: analytical reasoning, communication, computer use, data correlation, decision making, precision studies, problem solving, quality assessment, supervision, teaching, technical writing, troubleshooting, research and utilization review; 3) learned these skills as students or practitioners.

Settings And Participants: Data were collected from 515 CLS/MT ITF participants who were part of an ongoing longitudinal study.

Main Outcome Measures: Participants were asked if they were CLS/MT program graduates; whether they used the skills frequently, sometimes, rarely or never; and whether they initially learned the skills as students or developed them on the job (OTJ). Chi square analyses were performed to test for differences among groups.

Results: The response rate was 44%. Frequencies for using the skills were generally over 90% with three exceptions reported as rarely or never used by the majority of the respondents, and two exceptions reported as being approximately equally used or not used by the respondents. A sizable minority (23% to 45%) of the sample reported never learning six of the skills. Significant (p < 0.05) chi square results occurred between learning and utilizing the following skills: computer use, participation in research, problem solving, supervision, technical writing and utilization studies. Although a consistently higher proportion of the CLS/MT graduates reported learning the skills as students and Other BA/BS graduates reported learning them OTJ, no significant differences between these sub-groups were observed for either learning or using these skills.

Conclusion: For this sample group, most generic skills learned as CLS/MT students and/or practitioners are applied to the ITF jobs and are generally congruent with what is being taught in CLS/MT programs. However, there are some notable exceptions.