Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2016, Higher Education (Education)

The Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) standards dictate that physical therapy faculty demonstrate they have contemporary expertise in their teaching areas. Clinical experience or practice is one example of evidence for proof of contemporary expertise. Students report they value faculty members who maintain clinical practice because they bring current applicable clinical content to the classroom. There has been much discussion in the literature regarding the high teaching demand placed on faculty while there is a greater emphasis placed on scholarly productivity for promotion and tenure opportunities. With such demands for teaching and scholarship, is there time available for clinical practice? The purpose of this study was to explore physical therapy faculty clinical practice and to investigate if there is a relationship between clinical practice and physical therapy faculty work characteristics. The quantitative research design of this study utilized the CAPTE Annual Accreditation Report as the primary survey instrument to collect data including faculty characteristics, work characteristics, and clinical practice information. There were 22 Likert-type clinical practice ratings added to the instrument by the researcher to collect data specific to clinical practice patterns among faculty members. There were 694 responses in the final data set. Among the respondents, the majority participated in clinical practice during the Fall/Spring 2013/2014 Academic Year (67%). The majority of the respondents indicated they participate in clinical practice in order to maintain, enhance, and/or provide additional clinical skills (65%). Means of the clinical practice ratings were consistently lower (indicating more agreement) among the practicing faculty members than the non-practicing faculty members. MANOVA analyses confirmed that there were significant multivariate effects using Wilk's statistic for clinical practice groups (Λ= 0.77, F(2 (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Williford Dr. (Committee Chair); Gordon Brooks Dr. (Committee Member); David Horton Dr. (Committee Member); Beth Vanderveer Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care; Health Sciences; Higher Education; Physical Therapy; Rehabilitation; Teaching; Therapy