The evolving responsibilities of physical therapists require
critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Today, the
physical therapist has responsibilities for patient examination,
evaluation, diagnosis, prognosis, plan of care, intervention,
and outcome assessment (APTA, 1995). Physical therapy students
are educated to evaluate each patient to determine a diagnosis.
From this diagnosis, the therapist identifies specific patient
goals and designs an individual patient therapeutic program.
Intervention strategies are selected from a vast program.
Intervention strategies are selected from a vast array of
treatment options to help the patient achieve the desired
goals. Outcome assessment of the intervention occurs frequently
throughout the course of treatment. At the end of the episode
of care, the therapist reflects on the particular patient
outcome and compares this to other similar patient outcomes.
Through this process of outcome assessment, the therapist
can conceptualize the most successful approaches. These
approaches are empirically tested with subsequent patients.
According to Kolb (1976), the learner involves himself in
new experience (concrete experience) and then reflects on
his experience (observations and reflections). This reflection
leads to the formation of ideas (abstract conceptualization),
which the learner then tests in new situations to solve
problems (active-experimentation). Since this process is
very similar to the process used by physical therapists
to manage patients
Learning style is a multidimensional classification in
which many variables influence one another to produce unique
learning preferences and patterns among individuals (Griggs,
Griggs, Dunn & Ingham, 1994). Learning characteristics
refers to a broader meaning and is operationally defined
to include all constructs that describe individual learning
behaviors.Collectively, students and faculty in physical
therapy education programs benefit from understanding the
specific relationship of the selected variables on learning
styles.
Kolb's learning model has been selected to describe the
learning process of physical therapist students and clinicians
in the United States. According to Kolb, the change in practice
should produce a concomitant change in preferred learning
styles.In a threee country comparative study Farina (1997)
found that:
- Physical therapy students in Australia, Canada, and
the United States have learning characteristics, which,
like other college students, are influenced by students'
age and parents' SES.
- Although all four of Kolb's styles were represented,
the Converger and Assimilator style are dominant in the
population of physical therapy students.
- Institutional environmentinstitutional influences the
study process behaviors of physical therapy students in
Canada and the United States.
- The study could not demonstrate a correlation between
the constructs underlying the Kolb Learning Style Inventory
(LSI) and the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) using
the data from the three countries investigated. Thefore
they measure different aspects of learning charactieristics.