SURVEY OF CLINICAL EDUCATION STANDARDS IN PHYSICAL THERAPIST ASSISTANT PROGRAMS. Ellen Wetherbee*1; Scott Giles2 1. Physical Therapy, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT; 2. Physical Therapy, University of New England , Biddeford, ME PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine how physical therapist assistant (PTA) programs use rubrics and identify minimum performance expectations for students' initial and culminating clinical experiences (CEs). BACKGROUNDS/SIGNIFICANCE: The Clinical Performance Instrument (CPI) is an assessment tool used to evaluate PTA student performance during CEs. Academic programs often utilize a rubric to specify minimum performance expectations for each of the 20 performance criteria (PC) on the CPI using the 100 mm visual analog scale (VAS). SUBJECTS: Surveys were sent to one Academic Coordinator of Clinical Education (ACCE) at all 234 accredited PTA programs in the United States. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Subjects responded to structured and open-ended questions concerning their program's clinical education requirements. Programs which used the CPI answered questions describing how faculty used rubrics and what minimum scores were required for the 20 PCs on initial and culminating CEs. ANALYSES: Results were coded and analyzed using Minitab 14©. RESULTS: Responses were received from 106 (45.3%) PTA programs. The mean number of CEs that academic programs required students to complete was 3.1, with a total mean of 15.6 weeks spent in CEs. The mean number of weeks for initial and culminating CEs was 4.4 and 7.7, respectively. Sixty-seven programs (63.2%) used the CPI for student evaluation and 54 (53.5%) developed a rubric to describe minimal acceptable student ratings. Surveyed schools using rubrics identified curricular design (66.0%) and input from academic faculty (71.7%) as being the most influential factors in rubric development. All (100%) of the PTA programs using rubrics, indicated that the rubric assisted ACCEs to determine students' outcome for CEs. The range of mean scores that programs expected of students for the 20 PC on initial CEs was 46.4-81.3 mm on the VAS. Likewise, the range of mean scores for culminating CEs was 51.6-97.9 mm on the VAS. Two-sample t-tests comparing the data for each PC from the initial CE to the corresponding PC from the culminating CE were performed to determine if there was a statistically significant increase in the level of student performance from the initial to culminating CE. The data indicated a significant difference (p<0.05), using Bonferroni's correction, in expected levels of performance for all PC, between initial and culminating CEs. The majority of PTA programs (75.9%) using rubrics did not require students to obtain a score of 100 mm (entry-level performance) on all 20 PC on their culminating CE, however 57.4% of academic programs required students to achieve 100 mm for each of the 'red-flag ' items (PC 1-5). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of PTA programs responding to the survey used the CPI to assess students' clinical performance and developed rubrics to assist in determining students' outcome. Faculty input and curricular design were the most influential in rubric development. PTA programs expected student ratings on the CPI to increase significantly from initial to culminating CEs. However, these programs did not always require students to obtain 'entry-level performance ' scores on culminating CEs, although a majority of programs did require students to attain 'entry-level performance ' for the critical, 'red flag ' PC. Further research is indicated to determine if students are being allowed to graduate without attaining entry-level skills. FUNDING SOURCE: The University of Hartford's Physical Therapy Program paid for the postage of surveys sent to ACCEs representing each of the PTA programs in the United States. Neither of the authors have any potential for material gain as a result of this study. KEYWORDS: Clinical Performance Instrument, Performance Criteria, Rubric Copyright 2009 by the American Physical Therapy Association. Requests for reprints should be directed to the corresponding author of the article. Educators, students, and other academic customers may receive permission to reprint copyrighted material from Physical Therapy (ISSN 1538-6724) by contacting the Copyright Clearance Center Inc, 222 Rosewood Dr, Danvers, MA 01923. Other types of customers who want permission to reprint should contact the APTA Editorial Office, Attn: Physical Therapy.