Assessment of the degree of satisfaction of physical therapy students with the academic experience

Verificação da satisfação com a experiência acadêmica de estudantes de fisioterapia

Abstracts

Introduction

The demand for higher education in Brazil has grown in recent decades, leading to teaching, pedagogical and structural changes in the public and private education sectors. Assessments of academic experience evaluate the quality of services provided within the fields of learning, relationships and infrastructure.

Objective

To assess the degree of satisfaction with their academic experience of students from all years of the undergraduate physical therapy course.

Materials and Methods

Cross-sectional research with 137 students from four years of the physical therapy course. The Scale of Satisfaction with Academic Experience was used, which contains 35 questions and is divided into three dimensions.

Results

The 1st-year students were the most satisfied (121.43 ± 18.68), followed by the 3rd-year (118.97 ± 25.37), then the 2nd (118.50 ± 28.28) and 4th-year students (103.02 ± 28.66).

Conclusion

The results were consistent with the literature regarding the limited experience of 1st-year students within the institution, which influences their evaluation, as it shows an incipient interaction with problems that permeate the course. On the other hand, the 4th-year students showed a more critical view due to the expectations of the fight for a place in the labor market.

Personal satisfaction; Students; Physical therapy specialty

Introdução

A procura por formação universitária no Brasil cresceu nas últimas décadas, o que provocou mudanças didático-pedagógicas e estruturais nos setores públicos e privados da educação. As avaliações da experiência acadêmica verificam a qualidade dos serviços prestados no âmbito do aprendizado, das relações e da infraestrutura.

Objetivo

Avaliar a satisfação com a experiência acadêmica de estudantes de diferentes turmas da graduação em fisioterapia.

Materiais e métodos

Pesquisa transversal com 137 alunos, distribuídos nas quatro séries do curso. Utilizou-se a Escala de Satisfação com a Experiência Acadêmica, que contém 35 perguntas, divididas em três dimensões.

Resultados

Os alunos do 1º ano são os mais satisfeitos (121,43 ± 18,68), seguidos respectivamente pelo 3º ano (118,97 ± 25,37), pelo 2º ano (118,50 ± 28,28) e pelo 4º ano (103,02 ± 28,66).

Conclusão

Observou-se que os resultados encontrados estão de acordo com a literatura no que tange à pouca vivência do 1º ano dentro da instituição, o que influencia sua avaliação, pois evidencia interação ainda incipiente dos problemas que permeiam o curso. No extremo oposto, o 4º ano evidencia uma visão mais crítica, graças às expectativas das disputas de espaço no mercado profissional.

Satisfação pessoal; Estudantes; Fisioterapia

Introduction

The development of a country depends on the improvement of the level of schooling and its suitability in regards to the productive system. Recently, there has been an increase in the academic population in Brazil, and that is why the government is committed to expand the availability offer and promote higher education for all (¹). A good quality education is also necessary as well as diversification of courses, qualification of teaching staff, funding guarantees, employability of graduates and young workers, and research promotion (², ³). These are goals that require the involvement of society as a whole.

The quality assurance of higher education relies on internal and external evaluations that aim to prevent or implement changes. Some indicators such as degrees, working scheme, and publications seem to be insufficient as they put aside other aspects of education assessment, which is a concept with several layers. Therefore, higher education institutions must be prepared to acknowledge a wide range of individual differences in which adaptations that go beyond technological innovations must be implemented in order to consolidate new learning spaces and to promote, throughout the training process, a full development — whether cognitive, vocational, or personal — where a collective reflection process takes place (⁴).

In order to practically acknowledge the differences, it is necessary to consider the students' opinions about the different aspects of their course, as the offer is highly standardized, and the courses only cover basic matters that ensure their general functioning. They provide a traditional curricular content with traditional teaching methods that are not efficient in the current information era (⁵).

In this way, academic performance cannot be assessed only using grades or evaluation of skills. The idea of academic success goes beyond that. It concerns all of a student’s experiences in the educational environment with satisfactory or unsatisfactory achievements (⁶). To achieve the goals of a new education that go beyond practical recasting, it is necessary for the student to be actively involved.

The physical therapy course at Unicentro University in the city of Guarapuava, Paraná, was first offered in 1999. Since then, the curricular contents have been reshaped three times, the latest changes done in 2010. The aim of this article is to assess the degree of satisfaction of students from all years of the undergraduate physical therapy course with their academic experience at Unicentro.

Materials and methods

This is a cross-sectional study that aims to assess the degree of satisfaction of physical therapy students from Unicentro by means of the Scale of Satisfaction with Academic Experience (ESEA, as per its acronym in Portuguese), which was validated by Schleich, Polydoro, and Santos (⁷), who reported that this instrument explained 47.7% of the total variance and 0.942 of internal consistency. The three dimensions of the ESEA, as explained below, have Cronbach's alphas of 0.902, 0.865, and 0.866, respectively (⁴).

ESEA (⁴, ⁷) consists of 35 questions rated between 1 and 5 where 1 means "not satisfied at all" and 5 means "completely satisfied," and only the lowest and highest rates are presented. The instrument is divided into three dimensions: a) satisfaction with the course (questions 1, 5, 8, 12, 13, 14, 21, 25, 28, 31, 33, 34, and 35) – minimum rating 13, maximum 65; b) development opportunity (2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 17, 23, 24, and 26) – minimum rating 10, maximum 50; and c) satisfaction with the institution (4, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 29, 30, and 32) – minimum rating 12, maximum 60.

The survey was carried out in 2010, and the sample consisted of 137 students who were apportioned as follows: 1^st year with 30 students; 2^nd year with 36; 3^rd year with 35, and 4^th year with 36. Inclusion criteria were: 1) to be duly enrolled in the physical therapy course; 2) to sign the Free and Informed Consent Form; 3) to be physically able to mark the answers without any help; 4) to fill in the ESEA (4, 7) only in the classroom during the general collection, for all school years. The exclusion criterion was failure to meet the inclusion criteria.

The ESEA (⁴, ⁷) was conducted with Unicentro students during a theoretical class each school year. To avoid rushing the students, there was no established deadline for the answers, but the evaluation could not last longer than a lesson. In order to avoid bias, students were asked not to exchange information and to remain silent. The data were analyzed by assessing the reliability of arithmetic means with the help of BioStat 4.5 software. Only the questionnaires that were fully answered were analyzed.

This work was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee from Unicentro under number 420/2010.

Results

The total number of participants was 137 out of which 111 were females and 26 were males with an average age of 20.60 ± 2.83. After dividing individuals by year, we counted 22 women and 8 men in the 1^st year (19.34 ± 3.58 years old), 31 women and 5 men in the 2^nd year (19.33 ± 1.10 years old), 29 women and 6 men in the 3^rd year (21.08 ± 2.42 years old), and 29 women and 7 men in the 4^th year (22.44 ± 2.64 years old).

Table 1 shows raw data of scores by course year divided into the three dimensions of ESEA (⁷) components, so a first and separate analysis of the results obtained was possible. It is worth mentioning that the ESEA (⁷) has no cut-off score to determine dissatisfaction; instead, there is more or less satisfaction when the arithmetic means are compared.

Table 1
Raw data distribution per dimension in each year

Undergraduate
1st year					2nd year						3rd year				4th year
1st	2nd		3rd		1st			2nd	3rd		1st	2nd	3rd		1st	2nd	3rd
60	35		51		26			15	13		29	15	15		20	10	11
50	36		44		31			18	15		36	18	20		26	13	13
41	29		37		36			20	18		37	20	24		27	14	14
58	41		48		38			22	20		37	22	25		28	14	15
51	31		26		39			23	22		39	22	26		29	15	17
40	30		38		40			23	24		42	24	28		32	19	17
55	41		47		40			23	27		42	25	32		33	19	19
54	37		40		40			25	28		44	25	32		35	19	21
42	29		38		41			26	30		44	26	32		35	21	24
40	18		27		41			28	31		44	28	33		37	21	25
49	34		35		44			28	31		45	30	33		39	22	25
44	30		35		46			28	31		45	30	34		40	23	27
52	42		54		46			30	33		46	30	34		41	23	28
53	37		51		48			30	35		47	30	35		41	23	28
40	34		41		48			32	36		47	31	35		41	24	29
46	33		44		49			33	36		48	31	36		42	27	31
44	33		34		50			33	36		49	32	37		42	28	32
46	33		37		51			33	36		52	32	37		42	28	32
54	31		36		51		33		37		52	33	38		43	28	32
52	36		50		51		34		39		53	33	38		43	30	32
48	33		45		51		35		40		53	33	39		43	30	32
61	41		45		52		35		43		53	33	40		45	31	33
55	38		40		52		35		43		53	33	42		46	31	33
60	39		49		54		35		44		53	33	43		47	32	35
33	27		28		56		35		44		54	33	44		48	32	35
42	25		27		56		36		44		55	35	45		48	32	37
39	29		43		56		37		45		57	36	45		49	32	39
39	29		30		56		39		46		57	36	45		50	32	39
51	34		36		56		39		46		57	37	48		52	32	40
45	33		38		57		39		47		58	39	50		53	33	40
-	-		-		58		39		47		59	39	51		53	33	40
-	-		-		60		40		50		60	40	51		54	34	41
-	-		-		63		40		54		61	41	53		54	36	44
-	-		-		64		43		55		62	43	56		55	38	45
-	-		-		64		46		57		64	46	60		56	42	47
-	-		-		65		44		53		-	-	-		59	42	50
48.1	33.2	39.8			49.3	32.0			37.1		49.5	31.2	38.1		42.4	26.7	30.6
7.32	5.26	7.76			9.32	7.43			11.2		8.33	7.01	10.17		9.37	7.96	9.98

• Source: Research data.

In the 1^st dimension of Table 1, it is observed that the 3^rd year students are the most satisfied with the course, followed by the 2^nd, 1^st, and 4^th years. A gradual score decrease is seen starting from the 1^st year regarding the satisfaction with development opportunities in the 2^nd dimension of the table. Regarding the satisfaction with the institution, the initial behavior was similar to the development opportunities level, but the 3^rd year interrupted this evolution.

Table 2 below shows, in a comparative manner, the general result of the analysis of the three dimensions proposed by ESEA and assessed jointly. To evaluate the association between the dimensions, an ANOVA was done with a criterion (p < 0.05) in all series (p < 0.001). The score results from each year were compared using the Kruskall-Wallis test (p ≤ 0.05) to assess the reliability of means within the groups (p = 0.0288). The 1^st-year students are the most satisfied, followed by the 3^rd-, 2^nd-, and 4^th- year students.

Table 2
Degree of satisfaction per year

Undergraduate	1st year	3rd year	4th year
Mean	121.43	118.97	103.02
Standard deviation	18.68	25.37	28.66

Source: Research data.

Discussion

Entrance into higher education is characterized by many expectations and fears. Courses with a full-time curriculum such as physical therapy require some adaptations from the student in the sociocultural, economic, family, and emotional spheres. To face these conditions is enriching for the construction of personal history, but it can also lead to frustrations that result in learning difficulties, failures, and dropouts (⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰). An educational policy that is committed to these ideals of higher education must take these facts into consideration.

The complexity of academic adjustment considers facts that go beyond the classroom walls. Therefore, the processes and means that facilitate learning should not be put out of the whole context of human development. Frustration or satisfaction have an effect on student involvement - that is, the way students dedicate themselves to the course. The relationship between students, teachers, and the organization is important in order to understand the quality of the experience, which ultimately influences the academic performance (¹¹, ¹²).

Adaptation to the university was assessed in a study that evaluated five spheres called career, personal, interpersonal, study, and institutional. The correlations revealed that the variables "self-exploration" and "degree of out-of-class interaction with teachers" were more closely related to the five indicators of adaptation (¹³). The low degree of correlation with other possible variables maybe responsible for the occurrence of academic dropout, which was around 22% on average in Brazil between 2000 and 2005 (¹⁴).The reasons for dropouts are mainly economic difficulties (¹⁵) and disappointment of previous expectations (¹⁶).

Santos and Suehiro (¹⁷) point out that entering students go through a period of idealization, which reflects higher degrees of academic satisfaction. The lack of actual knowledge of institutional problems makes it difficult to understand the social meaning of the entrance into higher education. On the other hand, they reassert the idea that working on a consistent adaptation has a positive and cumulative effect on academic performance. The 1^st undergraduate year of the physical therapy course at Unicentro was comparatively more satisfactory than the other years in all assessed dimensions and in the general result.

Igue, Bariani, and Milanesi (¹⁸) analyzed the experiences and expectations of concluding university students via an Academic Experiences Questionnaire (AEQ), showing that concluding students are less satisfied than entering students. The last year course is characterized by the opposition of the initial idealization, goals that were not achieved, and the redefinition of mistaken strategies. These observations are evident in the results of our study when we see the rates of 4^th-year students who, despite their satisfaction with the course, face the possibility of uncertain professional growth.

There was little difference between the values found for the 2^nd and 3^rd years, the latter being the most satisfied, which contradicts the statement that the longer the stay in university the less satisfaction students will experience. Bardagi, Lassance, and Paradiso (¹⁹) did research on academic backgrounds and satisfaction with professional choices with 391 students from 16 courses. They noticed that the half-course period was the most difficult, although they did not compare entering and concluding students. The authors also indicated that the variable involvement with institutional activities is essential to characterize satisfaction. It must be observed, then, that isolated events of dissatisfaction can have a negative effect on academic experience.

The dimension with the highest mean in our study was satisfaction with the course, which is similar to what Schleich, Polydoro, and Santos (⁷) found. They explain that this result refers mainly to the students' satisfaction with their relationship with teachers, colleagues, and the quality of the course. The physical therapy course at Unicentro has gone through changes that are consistent with these findings. The increasing qualification of the teaching staff, with a larger number of masters and PhD holders brings didactic and pedagogical innovations that have an impact on the way the students see the course.

Currently, the curricular content of Unicentro is going through its third recasting, which shows a maturing in the search for curricular balance whether by rectifying previous mistakes or by implementing innovation. The campus itself is receiving funds to have its infra-structure improved. A follow-up instrument, such as the one proposed by this study, would contribute to keep available the information that is part of the constant process of changes in education but highlighting the student body speech.

Conclusion

The results found are in accordance with the literature when it comes to the need for greater attention to adaptation factors for entering students and the development of strategies that include the skills needed by the labor market. Academic performance depends on satisfaction during the undergraduate course provided by the institution by qualified teachers, participative management, and a suitable infrastructure for knowledge production.

The dimension called "satisfaction with the course" stood out with higher rates despite the interviewees' dissatisfaction with the institution and a decreasing satisfaction with development opportunities over the years. The regular use of this kind of instrument is recommended at the end of each year as it would work as an aid in the planning of concrete, didactic, and pedagogical strategies.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  jan-mar 2014

History

• Received
  26 June 2013
• Accepted
  17 Nov 2013