The effect of training with feedback on physiotherapy students' ability to judge lumbar stiffness

SUMMARY. Previous studies have demonstrated that manual judgments of lumbar posteroanterior (PA) stiffness show poor reliability. One explanation for this poor reliability may be that the method of training students using feedback provided by physiotherapy tutors is ineffective. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether immediate quantitative feedback, provided from a highly reliable mechanical device, could improve physiotherapy students' ability to judge lumbar PA stiffness. Four physiotherapy student raters assessed 75 stiffness stimuli (provided by the lumbar spines of asymptomatic volunteers) during pre-test, training and post test sessions held over a 3 week period. During the training sessions raters were provided with accurate and immediate feedback regarding each judgment of PA stiffness at the L3 vertebral level of asymptomatic lumbar spines. No significant difference in mean absolute error between the pre and post tests was found (P = 0.31). Provision of information about the true PA stiffness of each lumbar spine judged, therefore, did not improve the accuracy of physiotherapy students' judgments of lumbar stiffness. Copyright 1996 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.