What Do Clinical Educators Look for in Physiotherapy Students?

Abstract

Attempts to achieve greater objectivity in the assessment of students on clinical placement may be complicated by differing perceptions of professional competence and the extent to which implicit criteria contribute to decision making. This study used a triadic repertory grid procedure to reveal the criteria used by 20 clinical educators to differentiate between good and bad clinical performance by undergraduate physiotherapy students. The data were subjected to factor analysis and content analysis. The results indicated that a broad range of assessment criteria was applied by the clinical educators in the study, but from their individual bioplar constructs eight common dimensions were identified as being used to differentiate between students. Of these, the most influential were least amenable to objective assessment. On further analysis using an unrelated t-test, the eight dimensions were found to be consistently sensitive as discriminators of clinical performance (p < 0.01). The implications of the findings are discussed with respect to content validation of assessment instruments, staff development and students' learning outcomes. Attempts to achieve greater objectivity in the assessment of students on clinical placement may be complicated by differing perceptions of professional competence and the extent to which implicit criteria contribute to decision making. This study used a triadic repertory grid procedure to reveal the criteria used by 20 clinical educators to differentiate between good and bad clinical performance by undergraduate physiotherapy students. The data were subjected to factor analysis and content analysis. The results indicated that a broad range of assessment criteria was applied by the clinical educators in the study, but from their individual bioplar constructs eight common dimensions were identified as being used to differentiate between students. Of these, the most influential were least amenable to objective assessment. On further analysis using an unrelated t-test, the eight dimensions were found to be consistently sensitive as discriminators of clinical performance (p < 0.01). The implications of the findings are discussed with respect to content validation of assessment instruments, staff development and students' learning outcomes.