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Simulation-Based Education in Physical Therapist Professional Education: A Scoping Review.
Brad Stockert1, Nicki Silberman2, Jason Rucker3
1California State University, Department of Physical Therapy, Sacramento, California, USA.
Physical Therapy
|October 6, 2022
Summary
Simulation-based education (SBE) is increasingly used for physical therapist students, but best practice standards and validated outcome measures are often lacking. This limits reproducibility and optimization of SBE in physical therapy education.
Area of Science:
- Physical Therapy Education
- Medical Simulation
- Health Professions Education
Background:
- Simulation-based education (SBE) is a growing pedagogical approach in physical therapy.
- There is a need to understand how SBE is implemented and if best practice standards are integrated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To summarize the literature on SBE for student physical therapists.
- To assess the integration of Standards of Best Practice (SOBP) for SBE in physical therapy education research.
Main Methods:
- A scoping review of Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and ERIC databases.
- Included studies focused on SBE with student physical therapists.
- Descriptive statistics were compiled; no quality assessment was performed.
Main Results:
- Literature on SBE for physical therapist students has significantly increased in the last decade.
- Communication skills were the most common learning objective for simulations.
- Limited use of published SOBP and unvalidated outcome measures were frequently reported.
Conclusions:
- Despite increased use of SBE in physical therapy education, integration of SOBP and validated outcome measures remains limited.
- This lack of standardization hinders study reproducibility and the optimization of SBE.
- Future research should focus on integrating and reporting SOBP across simulation design, delivery, and assessment.
