Reflection on a whole cohort, education, research and leadership placement - successes, challenges and lessons learnt

Quinn-Thomas, F.

Abstract

Purpose: The potential roles of a Physiotherapist are diversifying. Since the introduction of the Multi-Professional Framework for Advanced Clinical Practice (HEE, 2017), the "Four Pillars of Advanced Practice" have been widely utilised and are becoming common terminology across the healthcare sector. However, it is noted that despite Physiotherapy pre-registration curricula including Leadership, Education and Research, the proportion of placements did not align to this. As such, we embarked on a whole cohort, non-clinical placement for a period of 3.8 weeks, with students completing two projects (focused on one or more of: Leadership, Research and Education) plus other activities. We took immediate reflections from both staff and students to consider what went well, what the challenges were and how this model of placement could be improved in the future.
Methods: The data was collected in three methods to represent all perspectives of those involved in this placement:
a)
Discussion with students and educators together on final day of placement
b)
Microsoft Forms survey to students exploring their perceptions of the placement
c)
Microsoft Forms survey to educators exploring their perceptions of the placement
Results: There were 32 students and six educators (three from the university, three external placement providers) involved in this placement block. All students were second year students on the MSc pre-registration programme at Keele University. None of the students had experienced a non-clinical placement before. Three of the six educators were used to providing Education, Leadership or Research placements. One educator regularly provided clinical placements, and two others (from the HEI) had not supervised student on placement for some time.
All educators reported that there had been challenges with this placement model. This was in relation to time to set up the project (3/6), ensuring appropriate level of activities for students (2/6), sufficient time to complete the projects (2/6) and ensuring that the projects were meaningful to the students (4/6). However, all educators felt that there was potential with this model of placement, and would consider supporting it in the future. Educators also highlighted some successes of potential publications for students, increased networking and increased placement capacity.
During discussion, most students felt that they would have preferred a clinical placement to this placement. However, most also reported that they had acquired or developed skills in relation to communication, digital literacy, project management, research, delegation and suchlike and these skills were the main successes. The main challenge students reported were: time to complete the projects (all), the number of students per project and understanding the relevance to practice.
Conclusion(s): This placement model had some successes and potential to develop further. It is acknowledged that although this model can improve capacity and opportunities, it is important to consider student experience. The key recommendations would be to consider the type of project, the duration of time allocated to this and communicating the relevance of the project to students.
Impact: This could impact all HEIs and placement providers considering non-clinical placements and is important as we consider the balance of placement capacity versus experiences
Funding acknowledgements: No funding received
Keywords: practice-based learning, Four Pillars of Advanced Practice, placement

Citation

Quinn-Thomas, F. (2024, October). Reflection on a whole cohort, education, research and leadership placement - successes, challenges and lessons learnt. Presented at CSP Annual Conference 2024, Manchester

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Abstract
• Conference Name: CSP Annual Conference 2024
• Start Date: Oct 10, 2024
• End Date: Oct 12, 2024
• Acceptance Date: May 24, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Mar 27, 2025
• Publication Date: Mar 27, 2025
• Deposit Date: Apr 25, 2025
• Journal: Physiotherapy
• Print ISSN: 0031-9406
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-1465
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 126
• Issue: April 2025
• Article Number: 101593
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2025.101593
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/1200031
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031940625001312?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Reflection on a whole cohort, education, research and leadership placement - successes, challenges and lessons learnt; Journal Title: Physiotherapy; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2025.101593; Content Type: simple-article; Copyright: