Use of vicarious learning (learning by observing the learning of others) linked to presentation of a variety of clinical cases (through an on-line database of cases) can be used as a means of enhancing student learning and development. In a complex cognitive field while students can and do learn directly from more experienced practitioners they can also benefit from exposure to student-student dialogues about complex cases, because the students may be closer in their understanding to the learner viewing their dialogue and students' reasoning processes can be very different to those of experts. A TLRP project, Vicarious learning and the teaching of clinical reasoning skills, examines how developing a multimedia database of learning experiences can be made available to other learners in order to help them develop their clinical reasoning skills.  Evidence from this project will be placed here as the project develops, but in the meantime you can follow the above link if you wish to keep up-to-date with developments in this area

Note also the case for use of VL and the use of databases of clinical databases is pressing partly because 'the provision of adequate, high quality clinical education for speech pathology students is becoming increasingly challenging, due to a range of changes and attitudes within all groups who have an interest in clinical education. Significant changes in speech pathology workplaces and employment patterns of speech pathologists, and concurrent changes in universities have created a situation of minor to extreme shortage of clinical placements in many countries' (p. 138, McAllister, 2005).

• McAllister, L. (2005) Issues and innovations in clinical education, Advances in Speech-Language Pathology, 7, 3 , 138 - 148.