Study of learning in Physiotherapy students and the interaction between the agents involved

Thesis supervisor: Marina Tomàs i Folch
Defense date: 17/06/2020
Author: Yolanda Sánchez-Retamero

The research focuses on the study of the learning by the students of the degrees in Physiotherapy with the aim of understanding the nature and the repercussions of the interactions between the agents (university teaching-tutoring staff, teaching-tutoring staff of the centre and students) on the subject Practicum I-II, in the second year, and Practicum V-VI, in the fourth year. The following aspects were studied: organization, coordination, achievement of the learning, relations between those involved, tutorial function, assessment and improvement proposals. The study is based on the cognitive learning perspective, in which the teaching staff is the facilitator of the learning and the students play an active role in the educational process, being responsible for instituting their own learning process, establishing connections between the elements of the university curriculum and the learning received in the external centre. The research is tackled from an interpretative paradigm with an ethnographic design and a mixed methodology. Different types of instruments were prepared to collect the information and to obtain the perception of the problem from those involved and to approach the reality studied from the point of view of the agents who participate in it. The research collects information from three academic years starting from the beginning, including the development and the completion of the subject, with the aim of contributing improvements and solutions on a training and professional level. Different situations were recorded by means of prolonged fieldwork, in order to describe and interpret what the researcher saw, from two groups fighting to achieve and respond to the quality of the student training. The interview with 34 participants allowed us to obtain in-depth information on the subject and permitted us to understand the meaning that the interviewee gives to the issue that the study raises, obtaining in-depth information from the three agents involved in the learning of the students. Furthermore, through the 24 observations undertaken of the interactions between the agents, we were able to understand the processes involved in conducting the practicums studied. The 244 questionnaires supplied to the centre’s teaching-tutoring staff, together with the 904 provided to the students, allowed us to obtain overall information and, finally, with the analysis of institutional documents, we were able to perform a triangulation of information gathering strategies. This study confirms that the interaction processes of the agents involved are decisive in the smooth running of the teaching-learning of the practicum. A shared need to increase these interactions is detected. Discrepancies were detected in the perception of the practicum between the students and the university teaching-tutoring staff, although there is a high degree of achievement of the learning objectives.

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