VALIDITY, UTILITY, AND RELIABILITY OF ASSESSMENT OF CLINICAL PERFORMANCE IN PHYSIOTHERAPY (ACPP-N) FOR NOVICE PHYSIOTHERAPY STUDENTS

S.B. Mysore¹, A.A. Farghaly², M.G. Gabor¹

¹Fatima College of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, ²Cairo University, Faculty of Physiotherapy, Cairo, Egypt

Background: Assessment of clinical performance could be challenging particularly for novice students. Hence, a new tool Assessment of Clinical Performance in Physiotherapy for novices (ACPP-N )was developed to assess students at the early stage of their clinical placements.

Purpose: To validate and measure the reliability and utility of ACPP-N in clinical practice.

Methods: Thirty-four physiotherapy students in their first and second year, and their clinical educators from a range of practice settings were invited to complete ACPP-N and online survey.

Results: Words used in the tool were clear, the domains were proportionately distributed, and the passing score of 60% was a true representation of student's achievement of learning outcomes. The marking criteria descriptors and the differentiation between “0” and N/A” were clear. All ACCP-N tool items were deemed relevant and appropriate in assessing novice clinical competencies with I-CVI all above 0.79 and S-CVI >0.90.Cronbach’s alpha of0.89 showed good internal consistency of the N=20 items of the ACPP-N tool.

Conclusions: ACPP-N is a valid, reliable, and practical tool in evaluating clinical competencies of novice physiotherapy students.

Implications: A mechanism to measure students learning in a clinical settings is an integral part of physiotherapy curriculum. The validated tool in this research study measures students at a novice level leaving the scope for developing further measure students spirally as they progress from one level to the other.

Funding acknowledgements: None

Keywords:
Clinical competencies at novice level
Physiotherapy students
Reliability, validity & utility

Topics:
Education: clinical
Professional practice: other
Education: methods of teaching & learning

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Fatima College of Health Sciences

Committee: Research ethics committee

Ethics number: FCEC-3-20-21-PT-8-SF