Leadership education in entry-to-practice physiotherapy programs: How to achieve it? A Canadian perspective.

To formulate recommendations, stemming from the medical education literature and backed by physiotherapy education stakeholders, about which pedagogical strategies are relevant to promote the development of the leadership competency in the Canadian entry-to-practice physiotherapy programs.

This rapid review searched MEDLINE, CINAHL and ERIC combining the following concepts: Leadership, Education and Healthcare sciences students. Original research/innovation reports assessing one or more pedagogical strategies used in a healthcare science university curriculum to develop one of the dimensions of the leadership competency of the CPPC (health promotion, advocacy and scope of practice expansion) were included. Data extraction employed Higher education pedagogical strategy synthesis typology and evaluation models from Kirkpatrick. To evaluate relevance, we conducted a Delphi study using an online survey designed to collect the opinion of the physiotherapy education stakeholders across Canada. The participants were asked to rate the relevance of the strategies identified of each dimension of the competency on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from “definitely irrelevant” to “definitely relevant”. The consensus cut off was established at 70% of agreement/disagreement. The strategies that did not reach consensus in the first survey were submitted again for reevaluation. The cut off to end the Delphi study was 70% of the strategies reaching consensus.

Thirty articles met the inclusion criteria, from which 63 pedagogical strategies have been extracted. The most common strategies were Project learning, Teamwork and Experiential learning. For the Delphi study, 27 strategies were submitted in the questionnaires (excluding duplicates). Two rounds were necessary to reach the cut off. Nineteen participants responded to the first questionnaire and eight to the second. Globally, the result of the Delphi highlighted the relevance of the prevalent strategies (Project learning, Teamwork and Experiential learning) found in the literature for each dimension of the leadership competency.

The findings lead to recommend the use strategies that foster authentic learning situations and teamwork, through partnership with community organizations for the advocacy and health promotion dimensions. For the scope of practice expansion dimension, in addition to the strategies previously identified, the stakeholders found relevant to include lectures to foster proper scaffolding in the development of the competency. In summary, project-based learning, teamwork and experiential learning are the recommended strategies to promote leadership development. Their combination appears to enhance leadership development even further.

This research gives indications on how to best develop tomorrow’s leaders in physiotherapy through entry-to-practice education. It gives a concrete blueprint from which other physiotherapy programs around the world can draw to include this competency in their curriculums.