Professional Behavior Expectations of Educators among Doctor of Physical Therapy Students: A Novel Professionalism Self-Assessment Tool

Monitoring educators\u27 professional behavior expectations among Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students during their academic and clinical rotations are crucial. They should be linked to the American Physical Therapy Association\u27s (APTA) code of ethics and core values. Having a solid methodology of monitoring professional behaviors expectations could enable a uniform institutional training of affective skills and recording of violations to the professional behavior expectations as required by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), where standards 7D4 and 7D5 state that The physical therapist professional curriculum includes content and learning experiences designed to prepare students to achieve educational outcomes required for the initial practice of physical therapy. Courses within the curriculum include content designed to prepare program students to practice in a manner consistent with the APTA Code of Ethics and Core Values . The professionalism self-assessment tool endorsed by APTA included only the core values but not the code of ethics principles. This study aimed to develop a consensus on educators\u27 professional behavior expectations among DPT students classified under both the APTA code of ethics and core values, perform a pilot test using the novel tool to the DPT students, and to identify the DPT faculty’s and student\u27s perspective on the importance of this tool to be incorporated into a DPT program