Critical Thinking Skills and Learning Styles in Physical Therapists Trained in India Enrolled in a Masterʼs Program

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSEThe Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) emphasizes the importance of physical therapist (PT) education programs providing opportunities for students to develop critical thinking skills.1 Despite this emphasis, the development of these skills often is not directly measured in PT education programs. Thus, there is a need in the profession to assess whether the physical therapy curriculum is promoting critical thinking skills in students as they advance through their programs. The purpose of this study was to measure the acquisition of critical thinking skills and describe curricular characteristics used to facilitate the development of critical thinking skills in internationally trained PTs attending a postprofessional master's degree program in the United States. Currently, there is no literature looking at the development of critical thinking skills and various physical therapy curricular characteristics. Many internationally trained PTs attending postprofessional master's degree programs become licensed and practice in the United States. Therefore, there is a need to determine whether PT education programs are developing critical thinking skills in these students as they enter this challenging health profession.As a result of a multidisciplinary project coordinated by the American Philosophical Association, a consensus definition of critical thinking was published in 1990: thinking is the process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment. This process gives reasoned consideration to evidence, contexts, conceptualizations, methods, and criteria.2Critical thinking is a process requiring judgment and, as such, it is not purely a method to be learned, but rather a process including both cognitive and affective domains.3 Ultimately, through this process a decision is made based on the available evidence, using appropriate conceptualizations, methods, and evaluative criteria. There is a distinct difference between critical thinking and problem solving. Problem solving focuses on a specific problem and finding solutions to this problem. Meyers points out that, through the process of critical thinking, one seeks to raise questions considering all aspects of the situation, along with critiquing the possible solutions.4 Critical thinking is a crucial skill for any clinician to possess in order to meet the multiple demands of the health care system. Although the profession of physical therapy makes it clear that critical thinking skills are necessary skills for new graduates to possess, evidence of the assessment of these skills in students is limited in the literature.The acquisition of critical thinking has been studied in different health care professional students. The majority of the studies have been conducted with nursing students, with a few studies focusing on physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, and medical students. A systematic review published by Brudvig et al5 reviewed 19 studies: 10 from nursing, 5 from physical therapy, 1 from occupational therapy, 2 from pharmacy, and 1 from medicine. Inclusion criteria included the use of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test or the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal to measure critical thinking skills. This review reported that the studies in physical therapy showed mixed results and lacked adequate statistical power. A recent study by Huhn et al6 reported that the Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT) detected an increase in critical thinking skills in students in 2 PT education programs from start to completion.There is no available literature to date on critical thinking skills in internationally trained PTs. In 2013, 4,928 internationally trained PTs took the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) (personal communication, FSBPT, December 2013). With a pass rate ranging from 25% to 30%, approximately 1,250 to 1,475 internationally trained PTs become licensed PTs eligible to practice in the United States. …