Zettergren K, Beckett R; Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT. Kathleen.Zettergren@quinnipiac.edu.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare reflective judgment skills among three groups of physical therapist students. Reflective judgment skills enable an individual to assess a problem, formulate multiple solutions to that problem and, finally, implement one solution. Individuals who have well developed reflective judgment skills can identify and solve both simple and complex problems. The autonomous practitioner identifies and solves a multitude of complex problems daily. Therefore, reflective judgment was studied to provide educators with a building block for further inquiry into problem identification and problem solving skills in physical therapist students. SUBJECTS: Two hundred students enrolled in a five year, entry-level, physical therapist program participated: 84 third year, 49 fourth year and 57 fifth year students. The sample was comprised of 157 female and 43 male students with an average age of 20.5 years. METHODS: Subjects completed The Reasoning About Current Issues Test (RCI). The RCI is a two-part standardized survey used to assess the seven stages of reflective judgment as defined by King and Kitchener. ANALYSIS: A one-way ANOVA to compare mean scores of the RCI among the three groups did not demonstrate a significant difference among groups (p £ .05). However, results did reveal a slight upward trend in reflective judgment skill, with students in the 3^rd , 4^th and 5^th year scoring 5.08, 5.09, 5.21 respectively. Scores on the RCI range from 1 – 7 with 7 denoting the highest level of reflective judgment. DISCUSSION: Reflective judgment skills in college-aged physical therapist students mirror the skills found in other populations of college-aged students. King and Kitchener define Stage 5 as the ability to recognize poorly structured problems with difficulty both articulating the full scope of the problems and solving them. Students in stage 5 are beginning to acknowledge that all problems are not black and white. However, students do not recognize that problems and their accompanying solutions are context dependent. This recognition will not occur until students reach Stage 7, the highest level of reflective judgment. To effectively engage in critical inquiry, students must both ask the right questions and generate logical arguments to answer these questions. Critical inquiry is a necessary skill for a physical therapist to practice autonomously in a variety of health care environments. To that end, further study of critical inquiry, including problem identification and problem solving, will benefit students, educators and ultimately the recipients of physical therapy services. FUNDING SOURCE: None.

Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Therapy Association

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