Evaluation of approaches to learning in Physiotherapy students

The approach to learning associates the type of motivation and the type of learning strategies used by students, with an impact on the quality of learning.The adoption of pedagogical practices that promote the deep approach, associated with better academic results, justifies the importance of studying this variable.In this type of approach, students associate intrinsic motivation, i.e. their enjoyment and involvement in learning, with a deep strategy, which focuses above all on understanding and the relationship between concepts.The objectives were to explore the type of approach to learning of physiotherapy students and the psychometric characteristics of the Learning Process Inventory, 2nd version university level (IPA-u-v.2) in this population.The methodology involved administering the IPA-u-v.2 to 415 students from 7 Higher Education Institutions from all 4 years of the degree.Descriptive statistics, internal consistency and principal components were analyzed and the IPA-u-v.2values were determined.The results show that students have higher scores for the deep approach and the success approach than for the surface approach, with higher average scores for intrinsic motivation and achievement motivation, as well as for the organization strategy and the deep strategy.The IPA--u-v.2 showed good internal consistency with a factor structure similar to the original.We conclude that the data support the use of the IPA u-v.2 in this population, and its application to other studies in the area that explore the type of approach to learning with the academic results and pedagogical practices used.It is hoped that this will help to adapt practices and improve the quality of learning in this population.