Obstacles to Physical Therapy Clinical Instruction: A Qualitative Study of Clinical Instructors

Purpose: Clinical instructors (CIs) are essential contributors to clinical education. Limited literature exists describing CI perceptions of supervising students. The purpose of this research was to identify CI challenges and possible solutions when supervising student physical therapists and student physical therapist assistants. Methods: A convenience sample of 99 CIs in the Northern California Clinical Education Consortium participated in this study. A phenomenological approach obtained CI perceptions of the barriers to supervising students. Researchers employed a web-based survey to obtain demographic information and pose two open-ended questions that allowed for up to three responses. Thematic analysis using a coding framework was employed to analyze the qualitative data. Results: There were 205 comments in response to the first survey item and 162 comments in response to the second survey item with all the comments included in the thematic analysis. Three main themes were derived for each question with each theme containing 2-4 sub-themes. Conclusion: CIs’ perceived challenges and desires for improvements in clinical education were associated with time constraints, program responsibilities, clinical site concerns, and the CPI. This study adds to the literature by Identifying themes and multiple sub-themes for various stakeholders of clinical education to specifically target. A coordinated effort from programs, site coordinators of clinical education, and clinic managers or administrators toward decreasing the barriers CIs face when supervising students may provide for an improved CI experience and in turn contribute to strengthened program-clinical site partnerships.