A new way to assess practical physiotherapy skills

This paper describes an innovative method of assessing the practical skills of physiotherapy students. The practice of identifying quality in Quality Circles and using Standards as guidelines is applied to the teaching of pre-clinical skills. The Standards, as identified by the students are then used as marking criteria in an assessment which utilises the principles of self and peer review. The assessment appears to encourage evaluative skills early in the undergraduate programme and bridges the gap between learning skills merely at a technical level and clinical work.