Suggestions for a standard clinical practice curriculum and learning objectives for physical therapy education in Korea

Since 1965, the Korean physical therapist licensing examination has been conducted to foster professional physical therapists. As the responsibilities of a physical therapist include measuring and evaluating patients’ physical function and developing the competence to establish treatment plans and predict the outcomes thereof, the need for a new examination system to help develop these abilities has been pointed out. This idea led to the introduction of case-based items on the examination in 2014, and it is expected that case-based items will replace all 60 existing practice items [1]. It is necessary to formulate a standardized curriculum and learning objectives for clinical practice before developing clinical cases based on clinical practice and case-based items. The present study aimed to suggest a standard clinical practice curriculum and learning objectives for physical therapy education in Korea to facilitate the development of case-based items for the Korean physical therapist licensing examination. We conducted a survey of the programs of 14 universities and 19 colleges using a questionnaire to collect information about various characteristics of clinical practice from June to September 2016. Raw data were available from Supplement 1. Ten researchers and 12 advisers established a standard clinical practice curriculum and learning objectives by analyzing the collected data using descriptive frequency analysis and discussions using the Developing a Curriculum method. Through this method, it was possible to create an educational program capable of reflecting the tasks and techniques of each job.