Decelerated Physical Therapy Curricula: The Who, the What and the Why
Purpose: Affordable, adaptable and flexible academic programming is essential for growth and economic stability in today’s market of higher education. This is particularly relevant in the academic preparation of health care professionals as many entry level degree programs are mandated to be graduate level. Flexibility and innovation in curricular design and delivery is necessary to meet the needs of diverse students in graduate programs and promote self-directed, life-long learning strategies that will serve students when they transition into clinical practice. The purpose of this project was to investigate the views regarding decelerated delivery of curricula for health professionals, particularly physical therapy programs
Methods/Description: Data was analyzed from several sources to draw conclusions on the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a decelerated track of the Doctor of Physical Therapy curriculum. These data sources include surveys distributed to accredited Physical Therapy programs and focused interviews.
Results/Outcomes: Several clear themes evolved during the data analysis including benefits of: potential improved quality of life for students, greater diversity of applicant pool, and improved retention. Themes related to limitations to decelerated delivery include availability of resources, lack of administrative support and implications on clinical education.
Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Institutions considering the develop of a decelerated delivery of curricula for health care professionals need to explore the long term and short term impact such a program would have. While it appears that such programs would be attractive to a more diverse group of learners and it has potential to increase retention of enrolled students, there are significant limitations to implementation of such a program.