Competence Development in an Undergraduate Physiotherapy Internship Program during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Blended Learning Approach

Abstract

Introduction: COVID19 pandemic has led to the creation of different teaching adaptations shared in health degrees, such as blended teaching methods, including face-to-face learning combined to online learning. Objectives: to compare the academic performance scores aligned to worked competences during physiotherapy internships between two groups: one exposed to a blended learning (b-learning) educational model and another one exposed to a face-to-face teaching sys-tem during internships. Another objective is to study the correlation with the marks of the fol-lowing year internship subject. Design: Analytical study of retrospective cohorts. Settings: Physiotherapy university degree. Participants: 300 students of Physiotherapy degree. Methods: Two groups were studied. Non-Exposed Cohort that had 100% face-to-face attendance at the clinical center, and Exposed Cohort to b-learning, that had 50% attendance at the clinical practice center, and 50% completion of asynchronous online complementary training during lockdown. Results: The results show both in the Exposed Cohort and in the Non-Exposed Cohort, the qualifications, therefore the competence development achieved by the student, was similar. A stronger correlation with skills activities developed in Exposed Cohort in relation to the final mark of the following year internship subject has been found. Discussion and Conclusion: All the competences developed during CS II obtained the same grades in both groups, so it is concluded that the online activities implemented during confinement mixed with face-to fece teaching were useful for achievement of these skills. b-learning is a good method for developing clinical practice competences in physiotherapy students. Contribution of the Paper: The blended teaching (b-teaching) is useful to develop internship competences. It is necessary to align the activities developed in internships, with the evaluated skills.