Developing clinical competence: a mastery pathway

Developing clinical competence in physiotherapy students is a particularly challenging task due to the complexities and uncertainties of the clinical task and the clinical environment. Supervisors experience difficulty with the rival demands of patient service and student education as well as the assessment of competence. Students demand supportive supervision with regular, constructive feedback. In 1993, when The University of Melbourne School of Physiotherapy first allocated students into clinical placements, a pathway was developed to guide practice and assessment of clinical competency. The pathway follows the principles of progressive mastery, individual pacing and part-to-whole sequencing. It encourages collaborative learning and provides a grid for visually representing progressive development. This article reports the rationale, reliability, validity and evaluation of this pathway.