AN ANALYSIS OF STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES AND METHODS IN PHYSICAL THERAPY WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR PHYSICAL THERAPY EDUCATION. Julia Chevan*1; Esther M. Haskvitz2 1. Physical Therapy, Springfield College, Springfield, MA; 2. Physical Therapy, The Sage Colleges, Troy, NY PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the use of analytic statistics in three consecutive years of Physical Therapy. BACKGROUNDS/SIGNIFICANCE: Physical therapists must have the skills to critically evaluate the literature in order to provide optimal evidence-based care to their patients. Knowledge of the statistical techniques and methods most often used in the physical therapy literature could help educators who teach research and critical inquiry courses to include the essential components that will best prepare their students. SUBJECTS: Not applicable. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Two investigators independently tabulated the statistical techniques and methods used in each research report and technical report in all issues of Physical Therapy for 1998, 1999, and 2000. A total of 138 articles were reviewed. The results of the tabulations were compared and if there was disagreement, the investigators jointly reviewed the article in question until consensus was reached. ANALYSES: Statistical techniques and methods were categorized into 17 groupings. These groupings were: descriptive statistics, tests of normality, t-tests, ANOVA, post-hoc analyses, correlation, reliability statistics, contingency tables, non-parametric statistics, epidemiologic statistics, power analysis, MANOVA, multivariate regression, logistic regression, latent structure, discriminant function analysis, and other. An analysis of the frequency of occurrence of the statistical techniques and methods within the groupings was completed. RESULTS: Three articles published in the time period under analysis used no statistical procedures at all. The range of statistical analyses undertaken per article was 0-10. The modal value was four procedures per article. In the three years of articles, a total of 617 statistical analyses were categorized into the groupings. The five most common techniques used were descriptive statistics (135 articles) followed by reliability statistics (86 articles), ANOVA (74 articles), correlation (55 articles), and t- tests (42 articles). In these articles, 86% of the analyses used corresponded to the types of techniques and methods typically taught in an introductory graduate level statistics course. CONCLUSIONS: The articles in Physical Therapy have a great deal of variety in the statistical techniques and methods used. Even with this variety, physical therapy program instructors who incorporate a graduate level statistics course may be including the appropriate content that will enable students to critically appraise this literature. FUNDING SOURCE: None KEYWORDS: Curriculum, PT education, Research 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.