STUDENT SELF-ASSESSMENT ACCURACY DURING PHYSICAL THERAPY CLINICAL AFFILIATIONS

INTRODUCTION: Competent self-assessment is an essential skill for health care providers. Self-assessment can help students identify strengths and weaknesses, and guide the process of professional development. No studies have examined the accuracy of student self17 assessment in clinical education. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare the ratings completed by clinical instructors and the self-assessment evaluations completed by physical therapy students during three clinical affiliations. An additional purpose was to investigate whether student grade point average, student gender, and learning style predicted self-assessment accuracy. METHODOLOGY: Retrospective analysis of scores from 155 Physical Therapy students from three different clinicals. Data regarding gender, GPA, and learning style were also examined. Factor analysis was performed to analyze the 24 evaluation criteria. Scale internal consistency reliability statistics were examined to determine the relationship between the student and clinical instructor scores for three clinicals. The Friedman\u27s ANOVA was used to examine the student and clinical instructor scores over three clinicals. RESULTS: Factor analysis resulted in categorization of the 24 Evaluation Items into two groups: Performance criteria and Professional criteria. There were differences found between student self-assessments and Clinical Instructor assessments in both the professional and performance criteria. There were also differences found in the student selfassessment scores on the students’ first, third, and fifth clinicals. CONCLUSIONS: Physical therapy students and Clinical Instructors differed in assessments of clinical performance. Differences were found in all clinical affiliations but scores became more congruent by clinical five. There were no significant predictors of accuracy except for trends based on grade point average