Assessing the Development of Civic Mindedness in a Cohort of Physical Therapy Students

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Introduction and Background: Colleges and universities have an obligation to educate graduate students who demonstrate civic literacy and who can engage in civic inquiry and action. Service-learning and community engagement courses are highly effective in developing civic-mindedness. Graduate professional programs may have additional reasons for focusing on development of civic mindedness. The purpose of this paper is 1) to measure the development of civic-mindedness increased in a cohort of physical therapy students exposed to a variety of civic engagement programs and service-learning courses and 2) to determine if there is a difference in civic-mindedness between students serving on a pro bono clinic Student Board and their classmates in a graduate physical therapy program. Methods: The Civic-Minded Professional Scale (CMP) is a 23-item, 7-point Likert-scale survey designed to measure the domains of self-identity; work, career and profession; and civic attitudes, civic action, and public purpose to measure the construct of civic-mindedness. The CMP was administered to a cohort of graduate physical therapy students at the beginning of the professional curriculum and at the end of each of three years of didactic coursework. Results: Friedman's repeated measures ANOVA with post hoc testing revealed that civic mindedness increased in our students throughout the course of the graduate physical therapy curriculum. Analysis also supports a difference on civic mindedness between those that participated in leadership of a pro bono clinic compared with students who did not. Discussion and Conclusion: Students involved in service-learning coursework imbedded throughout a graduate physical therapy program had increases in civic-mindedness. Service-learning coursework may be an effective way to develop civic mindedness in graduate students.

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Palombaro, K. M., Black, J. D., Dole, R. L., Pierce, J. L., Santiago, M. R., & Sabara, E. J. (2017). Assessing the Development of Civic Mindedness in a Cohort of Physical Therapy Students. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1159856