The effects of Self-controlled feedback on learning range of motion measurement techniques and self-efficacy among physiotherapy students.

This study investigates the effects of SC feedback on the accuracy of ROM measurements and visual estimation in physiotherapy students using a universal goniometer. In addition, we observed a relationship between SE and measurement accuracy before and after practice.

Thirty physiotherapy students randomly assigned to two groups participated: an SC group, where they could choose whether to receive feedback during practice and a Yoked (Yk) group, where they received input according to a schedule created by their SC counterpart. Participants completed the tests and practiced two tasks: a goniometric measurement task, where participants measure the ROM of left knee flexion using a universal goniometer, and a visual estimation task, where they estimate it visually. In this study, the reference ROM values for the knee joint were measured using software based on the measured values obtained using two electronic accelerometers. Measurement accuracy and time were utilized as test performances for both tasks. The SE for ROM measurement was measured before the start of each test. Feedback related to measurement errors was provided only during practice, consistent with the conditions of each group. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS ver.29 (IBM Corp., NY, USA).  In all analyses, a risk rate of less than 5 % was considered statistically significant.

The feedback frequency of the SC group remained high at 80.0 ± 30.3 % at the end of practice. The accuracy and measurement time of the goniometer measurements and visual estimation improved in both groups (both p 0.001); however, no significant differences were observed between the groups. In addition, the measurement accuracy was higher for goniometer measurements than for visual estimation(p = 0.007). Furthermore, SE before the pre-test did not show any relationship with the measurement accuracy of the pre-test; however, SE before the short-term retention test correlated with the measurement accuracy at that time (ρ= -0.675, p = 0.006) .

Although the effectiveness of SC feedback was not demonstrated, we showed that external feedback improved the accuracy of ROM measurements using a goniometer and visual estimation in physiotherapy students and shortened the measurement time. SE after the end of practice was temporarily related to measurement accuracy at that time.

We believe that providing external feedback will lead to effective educational methods promoting the use of physiotherapy techniques.