Biomedical Research

Clinical instructors play an important role in the clinical education of physical therapy students. A good clinical instructor ensures that the students get maximum benefit out of the clinical experience. The feedback of students about their clinical instructors is very important in designing strategies that can improve the clinical learning of students. Objective of this study was to find the perception of undergraduate physical therapy students regarding the clinical teaching attributes of their clinical instructors. This observational cross sectional study was done at departments of physical therapy of four institutes of Lahore. Study was completed in 4 months. Non-probability, purposive sampling was used to select a sample of 202 students. The Response rate was 92%. Self-administered questionnaires consisting of validated 25-point McGill Clinical Teacher Evaluation Tool (CTE) were used to find out the perception of students about their clinical teachers. The total agreement score of McGill’s CTE rating was high i.e. Mean ± SD=97.35 ± 15.478. The attribute of clinical teacher “is interested in helping students to learn” was rated the highest (Mean ± SD=4.41 ± 0.786) and “Occasionally challenges points presented in texts and journals” was rated the lowest (Mean ± SD=3.38 ± 1.109). The undergraduate physical therapy students rated their clinical instructors higher. Clinical instructors were helping for the students however more focus should be placed on the evidence based practice and instructors should regularly incorporate evidence from literature in their teaching practices.

Author(s): Sarah Ehsan, Maryam Shabbir Butt, Bilal Umar
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