THE TEACHING OF MOTOR LEARNING IN PHYSICAL THERAPY UNDERGRADUATE COURSES IN BRAZIL
Learning; Teaching; Universities
Introduction: Motor learning can be described as a set of processes associated with practice or experience that lead to relatively permanent changes in the ability to perform a skill. Despite widespread recognition that motor learning research is highly significant for physiotherapeutic rehabilitation, studies show there are gaps between theoretical knowledge and its implementation in clinical practice. To date, no research has analyzed the curriculum content related to motor learning in Brazilian undergraduate physiotherapy programs. Therefore, it’s unknown how the content is provided, whether it’s offered in specific components or included in other components, and if it’s related to clinical practice. Objective: To analyze whether the teaching of Motor Learning is included in the pedagogical projects of undergraduate Physiotherapy courses in Brazil. Materials and Methods: This is an exploratory, descriptive, and inferential study with quantitative and qualitative approaches. The research will be conducted in higher education institutions in Brazil that offer undergraduate physiotherapy courses with a preliminary course concept of 4 or higher. An analysis of professional training in motor learning from the perspective of the faculty will be conducted. This will be done through the application of questionnaires and conducting semi-structured interviews. Data collection will involve the analysis of the curricular content of the courses' pedagogical projects, as well as the use of an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data will be analyzed using content analysis techniques. Descriptive statistics will be applied to the quantitative data, and the Shapiro-Wilks test will be used to evaluate the normality of variables, identifying symmetric and asymmetric variables. Furthermore, correlation tests will be employed to analyze the correlation studies between educational, sociodemographic, and professional performance variables.