Physiotherapy students' self-assessment of performance-Are there gender differences in self-assessment accuracy?

The ability to critically appraise one's performance is paramount in physiotherapy and, although there is a paucity of research in this area, factors such as gender have been suggested to moderate the self-assessment accuracy of healthcare students. The purpose of this study was to determine a posteriori self-assessment accuracy of first-year physiotherapy students following a multiple-choice anatomy examination and to determine the specific influence of gender as a potential moderator of self-assessment accuracy.

One-hundred-and-forty-two students (n = 72 female) enrolled in their second semester of a three-and-a-half-year physiotherapy programme participated in the study. A purpose-made self-assessment questionnaire was used to measure the students' self-assessment ability, estimating their performance on 11 different anatomical categories following the examination. This was then compared with a criterion measure matched with the questionnaire. The accuracy of the students' self-assessment was investigated by the relation between self-assessment and objective performance.

The study showed low-to-moderate self-assessment accuracy (rho ranging from 0.318 to 0.675) with the students underestimating their performance in six out of 11 categories (p < 0.019). Gender did not contribute significantly to differences in accuracy between students' self-assessment and the criterion measure (p = 0.474).

According to the results, the students demonstrated low-to-moderate self-assessment accuracy when compared to their performance. Notably, the results clearly showed that gender did not function as a moderator of self-assessment accuracy among first-year physiotherapy students.