Comrades Marathon for short-term experiential learning as perceived by physiotherapy students: A short report

Corresponding author: Prof U Useh School of Environmental and Health Sciences North West University, Mafikeng Campus Email: 22839968@nwu.ac.za AbSTrAcT: This study described the learning experiences of physiotherapy students during the 2009 comrades marathon. A qualitative approach using focus group discussions was employed for this study. The population for this study was all the 43 B.Sc. physiotherapy final year students of the university of limpopo, who provided physiotherapy services at the 2009 comrades Marathon. forty (93%) students participated in this study. All the participants were black with majority 23 (58%) of them from the limpopo province. Twenty one (52%) of the participants were females with ages ranging between 21 and 30 years. The field trip provided both sport specific and general learning experiences. participants had the opportunity to handle sports injuries and athletes, work and learn as a team and were quite independent. This trip also provided participants the opportunity experiencing workplace communication and interaction, the reality of the real workplace experience of heavy workload, experience of prejudice, time management and an unsafe environment. Despite organizational challenges of the trip, the event provided an opportunity for the participants to practice sport physiotherapy. Participants appreciated the opportunity to experience the dynamics of team and collaborative learning. To ensure effective use of this event for experiential learning, it is recommended that proper guidance and support be provided by the faculty.

combining cognitive and affective aspects of learning.
Final year Bachelor of Science physio therapy students from most uni versities in South Africa offer services to athletes as a collective at events such as the Comrades Marathon.Services provided include prophylactic mas sage, strapping following sport injuries and physiotherapeutic management of injuries.During this event, students are expected to use the opportunity pro vided by the Comrades Marathon for collaborative and expe riential learning.Experience gained through life, educa tion and work plays a central role in the process of learning (Fry et al, 2006).Students are usually involved fully and freely in new experiences, also known as "concrete experience".Beaty (2006: 135) and Cummins et al 2010, affirms that there is a difference between learn ing in the natural world and learning in the constructed world, in higher educa tion.Placement, workbased learning

INtRODuCtION
Since its beginning, the Comrades Marathon has continued annually with the exception of the war years from 1941to 1945(Comrades, 2010)).The number of participants has grown tremen dously over the years.During an event of this magnitude, participants seek medical attention for different sport related injuries ranging from musculoskeletal injuries to respiratory pathologies.Sanchez et al. (2006) confirms that between 2% to 8% of runners are treated for a wide range of medical problems and musculoskeletal problems account for 17%.The Comrades Marathon as a tool for field learning will therefore provide physiotherapy students the opportunity to observe, assess and manage these arrays of sport injuries and conditions.Revital (2001), reite rates that field trips are complex, interactive and social learning environ ments, which enables binding of the curriculum to the environment and and field trips are the methods of pro moting experiential learning.The use of experiential learning has been documented in different professions; sociology (Sobal et al, 1981), medicine (Van Der HemStokroos et al, 2003) and physiotherapy (Richardson, 1999).In this study a field trip such as providing sport physiotherapy services during the Comrades Marathon is meant to com bine work in the classroom and work in the naturalistic setting.The advantage of a field trip is that the usual and physical impact of the surroundings brings theory to life (Beaty 2006: 140) and allows the secondary learning objectives to be met.
Despite the fact that physiotherapy stu dents from the University of Limpopo, like other students had participated in the Comrades Marathon for the purpose of teaching and learning over the years, there is no documented evidence that the Comrades Marathon as a tool for experiential learning has achieved the specified learning goals.We therefore sought answers to the following ques tion: 1) what were the general learning experiences of physiotherapy students during the field trip?
Kolb's experiential learning theory affirms the importance of experiential activities, such as field trips.Experiential learning is based on the notion that understanding is not a fixed or unchange able element of thought but is formed and reformed through experience.It is also a continuous process often repeated as cyclical and often based on experience (Fry et al, 2006).Active participation and involvement of students in real life situations are stressed.According to Sobal et al. (1981), action learning occurs as they learn by doing.Gentry (1990), reiterated that various terms are used to label the process of learning from experience: "learning by doing" "expe riencedbased learning"; "trial and error".Learning is used to explain the inductive learning processes; "applied experiential learning" combined experiential learn ing from the "real world" situation with application of concepts, ideas and theo ries to the interactive setting.

MEtHODOlOgy
The population for this study was all B.Sc. physiotherapy final year students of the University of Limpopo, Medunsa Campus, South Africa who provided physiotherapy services at the 2009 Comrades Marathon (N=43).During this period there are no structured teach ing activities by any faculty member but students were expected to learn by applying their theoretical knowledge, i.e. by "doing".Data regarding the expe riences of the students was collected using two focus group discussions and a survey questionnaire.Participants for the two focus groups were purposively chosen from the larger class of 43 and the survey participants were all students.Each focus group consisted of 612 members.
Before the collection of data, the two authors (UU and AH) who served as moderators assured participants that full confidentiality and anonymity was guaranteed and that respondents could withdraw from the study at any time without prejudice of any form.Informed written consent was obtained from participants.The starting question used in the focus group was: "What were your learning experiences during the Comrades Marathon?"As well as "What were the general experiences of students during this field trip?"The focus group discussions were recorded and later tran scribed verbatim.The initial themes from the focus group were critically evaluated by both authors.The agreed themes were presented to two indepen dent colleagues who are experts in qualitative research and had not attended the focus groups for verification.They agreed with the themes that were identified with a sum mary that was written for each theme.The report was then given to two of the participants for credibility.The results were presented to members of the group to confirm if the descriptions were a true reflection of their experience.

RESultS
A total of 40 (93%) students participated in this study.Three were absent on the date that data was collected.All the par ticipants were black with the majority 23 (58%) of them from Limpopo Province, 7 from Gauteng, 2 from Kwazulu Natal, one was from Eastern Cape and North West and two were international students.Out of the participants 19 (48%) were males and 21 (52%) females with ages ranging between 21 and 30 years.The results of the learning experi ences of the two focus group discussions are presented in Table 1.
The participants presented two dif ferent experiences: one was specific to sport physiotherapy and the other was related to the 'real working world' (general experience of the trip).

DISCuSSIONS
Participants in this study experienced learning by doing as reported by Sobal et al. (1981) and Beaty (2006) by treating sport injuries at the Comrades Marathon.Comrades Marathon as a field trip assisted in improving the practical skills of sport physiotherapy students.This was in agreement with Orion (1993) and Lave and Wenger (1991) who was of the opinion that new knowledge can be generated from practice and "hands on" activities which facilitates the construc tion of abstract concepts and enhancing meaningful learning.Participants also reported improving their confidence in clinical practice.According to Hudson (2008), experiential learning can be used to boost confidence.The improved confidence might be as a result of the participants making better clinical deci sions and improved problem solving in the management of sport injuries.Although the learning was fun, it was hoped that active and deep learning had occurred (Hess, 1999;Wright, 2000).Parti cipants mentioned experiencing col laborative and team learning during the field trip, interaction of students with colleagues and athletes from different sociocultural backgrounds from other institutions and simulating real work situation, occurred during the field trip.This agrees with Wright (2000), who reports that experiential learning facili tates the transition from class to the workplace.Working with different socio cultural and diverse groups could be akin to the true South African and workplace demo graphy.As a physiotherapist you are bound to work with persons from dif ferent backgrounds and this trip gives students the opportunity to do exactly this.
The opportunity to experience what they had learnt in class was also expressed.Collaboration and team learn ing was one of the experiences reported by participants.These findings agrees with those of Fisher and Savin Baden (2002), who reported that field work education encourages team work, independent and ownership of the learn ing experience.A few students however still wanted support from faculty.The reason for this might be attributed to the different learning styles and learn ing spaces as reported by Orion (1993) , andKolb andKolb (2005).A process oriented rather than contentoriented approach seemed a preferable learning strategy in field trips.
Poor preparation and other logis tics related to the real world were also reported.According to Orion (1993), the importance of preparation for field

CONCluSION
It was clear that the Comrades Marathon as a field trip provided an opportunity for the students to link theory and prac tice of sport physiotherapy.However, adequate preparations and faculty sup port was observed to be necessary for a more productive field trip and shortterm experiential learning.Since this was supposed to be used as learning tool, it is recommended that faculty should provide students with clear learning out comes and assessment guidelines prior to leaving for the trip.Assessment of outcomes might be through presentations of sport specific learning experiences.
It is also recommended that students should be more involved at the prepara tory stages of the trip.

lIMItAtIONS Of tHE StuDy
The fact that the data for this study was collected from only one of the eight participating universities limits generali zation of the outcome of this study to all other students from other universities.In addition, the approach of the study and the sociocultural composition of the population could have influenced the responses.Further study with a larger and a more diverse population is there fore recommended.