Research experience in an undergraduate physical therapy program

For the past five years, two required courses in research methodology have been presented to physical therapy students during their senior year. The overall objective was to prepare students to use the scientific method in their approach to physical therapy practice. The content of the first course included didactic instruction on the research process with emphasis on reading and interpreting the medical and scientific literature. In conjunction with this experience, students developed research proposals. During the second course, students gathered data, analyzed and synthesized results, and prepared a complete research paper. To date 67 projects have been completed. Reactions to this learning experience and samples of abstracts written by students are presented.