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Physiotherapy students' self‐assessment of performance—Are there gender differences in self‐assessment accuracy?
Author(s) -
Støve Morten Pallisgaard
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
physiotherapy research international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.509
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1471-2865
pISSN - 1358-2267
DOI - 10.1002/pri.1878
Subject(s) - self assessment , moderation , physical therapy , psychology , medicine , self evaluation , self report study , clinical psychology , applied psychology , social psychology
Background and Purpose The ability to critically appraise one's performance is paramount in physiotherapy and, although there is a paucity of research in this area, factors such as gender have been suggested to moderate the self‐assessment accuracy of healthcare students. The purpose of this study was to determine a posteriori self‐assessment accuracy of first‐year physiotherapy students following a multiple‐choice anatomy examination and to determine the specific influence of gender as a potential moderator of self‐assessment accuracy. Method One‐hundred‐and‐forty‐two students ( n = 72 female) enrolled in their second semester of a three‐and‐a‐half‐year physiotherapy programme participated in the study. A purpose‐made self‐assessment questionnaire was used to measure the students' self‐assessment ability, estimating their performance on 11 different anatomical categories following the examination. This was then compared with a criterion measure matched with the questionnaire. The accuracy of the students' self‐assessment was investigated by the relation between self‐assessment and objective performance. Results The study showed low‐to‐moderate self‐assessment accuracy (rho ranging from 0.318 to 0.675) with the students underestimating their performance in six out of 11 categories ( p < 0.019). Gender did not contribute significantly to differences in accuracy between students' self‐assessment and the criterion measure ( p = 0.474). Conclusion According to the results, the students demonstrated low‐to‐moderate self‐assessment accuracy when compared to their performance. Notably, the results clearly showed that gender did not function as a moderator of self‐assessment accuracy among first‐year physiotherapy students.