Abstract
Background
The goal of a selection process is to identify students who will complete the physiotherapy education program successful. Making an appropriate choice at admission increases the likelihood that physiotherapy students will be able to graduate and become a successful physiotherapist. A selection process more specific for physiotherapy education may improve
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the ability of the process to predict which students might have difficulty completing physiotherapy education.
Objective
To investigate predictors of academic achievement in physiotherapy education, clinical performance as a physiotherapist and success on the physiotherapy examination.
Methods
A computer aided search of ERIC, Google Scholar, PSYCinfo and Pubmed was performed by one researcher to identify relevant studies. The inclusion criteria were: (1) studies written in English, German, French or Dutch; (2) the study population consist of physiotherapy students (initial physiotherapy education (not professional physiotherapy education)) of physiotherapy education (initial) in general; (3) one outcome measure of the study must be student dropout, success factor, predictor of academic achievement, predictor of clinical performance or predictor on the physiotherapy examination; (4) the study design is a systematic review, meta-analysis, randomized controlled trial, quasi-experiment design or cross-sectional design (with retrospective design). The methodological quality was assessed with the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) and the ‘Overview Quality Assessment Questionnaire’(OQAQ). Principles from the ‘Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation’ (GRADE) were used to assess the quality of evidence for academic achievement, clinical performance and success on physiotherapy (licensing) examination
Results
After exclusion on title and abstract, there were 57 potential relevant articles. Eight articles were excluded based on design and 8 articles were excluded by population. Finally, twenty articles were excluded by outcome. As a result twenty one articles were included in this systematic review. Analysis of this articles have shown (preprofessional) grade point average is the most mentioned predictor of academic achievement. The most frequently mentioned predictors of clinical performance are preprofessional grade point average and interview score. The most frequently mentioned predictors of success on physiotherapy examination are ((pre)professional) grade point average and course outcome.
Conclusion
There is low evidence that grade point average is a predictor of academic achievement and very low evidence that age, ethnicity, course outcome, interview score, essay score and the Allied Health Professions Test are predictors of academic achievement. Further, there is very low evidence that course outcome, ((pre)professional) grade point average, interview score, clinical performance scale and defining issues test (moral reasoning) are predictors of clinical performance. Additionally, there is very low
evidence that age, ethnicity, course outcome, ((pre)professional) grade point average and interview score are predictors of success on the physiotherapy (licensing) examination. Further (quasi) experimental research on predictors of achievement of in physiotherapy education is recommended in order to create an evidence based selection process and get high quality evidence on this subject.
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