Good Works

Abstract

“If you do good work, it will be shared.” —Anonymous This issue is full of examples of this axiom. First, we have articles from our authors presenting the findings from their research efforts: Denton et al examine changes in students’ cultural competence in response to various learning activities in physical therapist education programs using a standardized measure. Gagnon et al provide information across multiple physical therapist education programs about the lack of student comfort with using social media and technology for professional purposes. Utley et al present data from almost 200 students about how content knowledge changes in response to the focus of clinical education experiences. Wilgens et al use qualitative design and techniques to explore conceptualization of theory related to mindfulness. Over the past 5 years, the editors and members of JOPTE’s Editorial Board have spoken frequently about important principles of sound educational research that strengthens design and methods, allowing great validity in and trust of results. The underlined terms show how these authors have used these principles. Good work! We also have 2 position papers in this issue, presented by authors with expertise and experience in these important areas: Kaplan et al are faculty with expertise in teaching and studying evidence-based practice (EBP) who developed guidelines for teaching EBP and shared strategies for using these guidelines. Perlow et al make the case for changing the approach to patient handling in physical therapy education to help reduce patient and therapist injuries in the future. In addition, we have an invited position paper from Deusinger that presents the talk she gave at the second Geneva R. Johnson Forum at the 2015 Educational Leadership Conference. This paper uses the principles of music composition to consider physical therapist education and is also available with a podcast that includes the virtuoso violinist, one of JOPTE’s own Editorial Board members, Dennis Fell, PT, MD. Good work all! We also have 3 other additions to this issue: A summary of the Second Annual Geneva R. Johnson Innovations in Physical Therapy Education Forum is provided. We recognize the award recipients from the 2015 JOPTE published manuscripts. We thank all the hard working JOPTE reviewers. Thank you all for the good work done and the good work shared!