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      Learning styles of physiotherapists: a systematic scoping review

      research-article
      , ,
      BMC Medical Education
      BioMed Central
      Learning style, Physiotherapy, Allied health

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          Abstract

          Background

          Understanding students’ learning styles, and modifying teaching styles and material accordingly, is an essential to delivering quality education. Knowing more about the learning styles of physiotherapy learners will assist educators’ planning and delivering of learning activities. The purpose of this scoping review was to explore what is published about physiotherapy learning styles.

          Methods

          An adapted Arksey and O’Malley framework was applied to undertake this systematic scoping review. Nine electronic databases (CINAHL, BIOMED CENTRAL, Cochrane, Web of Science, PROQUEST, PubMed, OTseeker, Scopus, ERIC) were searched using the keywords: ‘learning styles’ and ‘physiotherapy’. English-language, primary research articles that investigated physiotherapy learners’ learning styles were sought.

          Results

          Of 396 potentially-relevant articles, 15 were included in this review. The studies mostly reflected undergraduate students (910 undergraduates, 361 postgraduates, 23 professionals), in developed countries. Nine articles used the Kolb’s experiential learning theory (ELT); one study applied Honey and Mumford’s approach; two studies used the Gregorc model of cognition and three studies did not specify an underlying theory. Outcome measures included different versions of Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory, the visual-aural-read/write-kinesthetic questionnaire, Gregorc style delineator, Felder Silverman’s Index of Learning Survey, and Honey and Mumford’s Learning Style Questionnaire.

          The preferred physiotherapy learning styles, according to the ELT, seem to be Converger (learns “hands-on” and applying previously attained knowledge) and Assimilator (gathers and organises information to make the most sense).

          Conclusions

          Both physiotherapy learners and physiotherapists have specific learning styles of active participation, underpinned with practical examples of theoretical concepts. More research is needed in developing countries, and on postgraduate and professional physiotherapy learners’ learning styles. Also, further research should focus on defining and describing physiotherapy learning styles in a way to be used as an industry standard; and developing valid and reliable learning style outcome measures applicable across physiotherapy learners and settings.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-018-1434-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references34

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          The role of blended learning in the clinical education of healthcare students: a systematic review.

          Developing practice knowledge in healthcare is a complex process that is difficult to teach. Clinical education exposes students to authentic learning situations, but students also need epistemological access to tacit knowledge and clinical reasoning skills in order to interpret clinical problems. Blended learning offers opportunities for the complexity of learning by integrating face-to-face and online interaction. However, little is known about its use in clinical education. To determine the impact of blended learning in the clinical education of healthcare students. Articles published between 2000 and 2010 were retrieved from online and print sources, and included multiple search methodologies. Search terms were derived following a preliminary review of relevant literature. A total of 71 articles were retrieved and 57 were removed after two rounds of analysis. Further methodological appraisals excluded another seven, leaving seven for the review. All studies reviewed evaluated the use of a blended learning intervention in a clinical context, although each intervention was different. Three studies included a control group, and two were qualitative in nature. Blended learning was shown to help bridge the gap between theory and practice and to improve a range of selected clinical competencies among students. Few high-quality studies were found to evaluate the role of blended learning in clinical education, and those that were found provide only rudimentary evidence that integrating technology-enhanced teaching with traditional approaches have potential to improve clinical competencies among health students. Further well-designed research into the use of blended learning in clinical education is therefore needed before we rush to adopt it.
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            Learning Styles: An overview of theories, models, and measures

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              Allied, scientific and complementary health professionals: a new model for Australian allied health.

              There is no standard or agreed definition of "allied health" nationally or internationally. This paper reviews existing definitions of allied health, and considers aspects of allied health services and service delivery in order to produce a new model of allied health that will be flexible in a changing health service delivery workforce. We propose a comprehensive model of allied, scientific and complementary (ASC) health professionals. This model recognises tasks, training, organisation, health sectors and professional regulation. It incorporates traditional and new services which are congruent with allied health foci, allegiances, responsibilities and directions. Use of this model will allow individual organisations to describe their ASC health workforce, and plan for recruitment, staff training and remuneration.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                +27 21 9277198 , jessicas@sun.ac.za
                ubiquitous598@hotmail.com
                ybrink@sun.ac.za
                Journal
                BMC Med Educ
                BMC Med Educ
                BMC Medical Education
                BioMed Central (London )
                1472-6920
                3 January 2019
                3 January 2019
                2019
                : 19
                : 2
                Affiliations
                ISNI 0000 0001 2214 904X, GRID grid.11956.3a, Division of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, , Stellenbosch University, ; Francie van Zijl Drive, Tygerberg, Cape Town, 7505 South Africa
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1686-3882
                Article
                1434
                10.1186/s12909-018-1434-5
                6318981
                30606180
                d4c3896c-b5f4-4dbe-ae34-19e982c1737e
                © The Author(s). 2019

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 4 June 2018
                : 14 December 2018
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2019

                Education
                learning style,physiotherapy,allied health
                Education
                learning style, physiotherapy, allied health

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