By: Dr. Lisa Dehner
I had the privilege to attend the 2025 World Physiotherapy Congress in Tokyo, Japan, this May 29-31. World Physiotherapy was founded in 1951 and is the sole international voice for physiotherapy, representing more than 600,000 physiotherapists worldwide, through 129 member organizations. Their mission is to “To represent physiotherapy across the globe, advancing our profession and advocating access for all, to improve health and wellbeing.” Every 2 years World Physiotherapy holds a large international scientific congress, bringing the global community together.
Dr. Mike Obert and I were honored to be accepted for presentation with our research “Exam Calibration, Confidence and Accuracy in Physiotherapy.” This is an ongoing project to characterize the ability of DPT students to predict their exam performance in 3, Year 1 foundational courses (exercise physiology, neuroscience and biomechanics/kinesiology) and to see if there are relationships between accurate prediction and confidence and/or anxiety. Dr. Obert and I are dedicated to help students navigate the Year 1 experience successfully and to improve their self-assessment abilities.
The study continues this year with another cohort of students after which we hope to have enough robust data to publish our results. We look forward to taking our research down several different paths, for example, characterizing this information in Year 2 students, developing interventions/coaching for students who aren’t calibrating well, and gain a better understanding of student anxiety and confidence. We are also very excited to have Dr. Monica Myers join our research team in the upcoming year.
