Self-Efficacy in Pediatric Physical Therapy

(Two disclosures: I am not writing about Thinking, Fast and Slow because I came across a study this week that I want to think about instead.  Secondly, I am not including references to all of the articles noted in this blog, but can provide them to you if you have a deep and burning interest in the topic.)

There is generally a paucity in literature regarding training physical therapy students in pediatric practice.  Of the articles that are published, the majority are lists of competencies and guidelines, with two articles about implementing those guidelines into a small cohort of students.  There is evidence of vast variability in contact hours within the context of pediatric PT education, with a range from 35-210 hours, and concerns from clinical instructors that students are coming to clinics with inadequate preparation.

Experiential learning is important in translating didactic learning experience into practical, clinical skill.  Having a framework of competencies and guidelines is beneficial to ensure the breadth and depth of content is included for accreditation standards, but these lists of knowledge areas do not make for skillful, entry-level practitioners.  There are a couple of articles available on experiential learning in pediatric PT education: one is a call for emphasis on experiential learning and at least one reports on experiences with a service-learning in pediatrics.  That was essentially the entirety of the body of knowledge on this topic...until January 2019.

There has been a call for scholarship in the realm of pediatric PT education, including tools to measure outcomes to allow for comparison across programs to move toward more consistency in training of future clinicians.  As luck would have it, Changes in Perceived Self-efficacy of Physical Therapy Students was published this past January, with this Self Efficacy Scale as their newly developed outcome measure.  While there are limitations to this study, this is a great and needed starting point for moving toward more rigorous exploration of pediatric PT training.  The psychometric properties of the Self Efficacy Scale are not yet known, but I appreciated that this is a domain-specific tool, focused on two aspects (communication and direct handling) of skill within a specific context.

Inspired, I am wondering about meaningful data that might contribute to the currently small body of knowledge.  I am assisting with the pediatric coursework in the OSU PT program this summer.  Would this scale have any utility in understanding a newly implemented change for this cohort: required clinical experience in pediatrics rather than elective experience?  Given the terminology confusion, does this scale measure self efficacy or some other related concept?