Clinical teaching in physical therapy: student and teacher perceptions

Abstract

Many practicing physical therapists participate in the most crucial phase of a student's education by serving as Clinical Instructors. The purposes of this study were to identify the clinical teaching behaviors perceived as most effective and most hindering by students and CIs and to compare the response rates of students in bachelor's and master's degree programs. A published 58-item questionnaire was completed by 172 participants from eight physical therapy education programs. The results were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance. The perceived most helpful teaching behaviors pertained to providing information through feedback. The perceived most hindering behaviors were intimidating questioning and correcting student errors in the presence of patients. The different student and CI ratings for the item "leaves student alone until asked to supervise" has important ethical and educational implications. Master's and bachelor's degree students' ratings differed significantly on four teaching behaviors. Different instructional methods might be necessary for educating these students.