Learning with and from each other: promoting international and interprofessional collaborations in physiotherapy education research – a literature review

Abstract

Background: Best practice in physical therapy education requires good quality and quantity of research based on authentic learning settings and teaching practices. Facilitating large multisite research and large data sets for analysis has the potential to contribute to a strong research base. Clinical research makes use of international and interprofessional consortiums to produce quantity and quality of research outcomes.

Objectives: The paper aimed to investigate international and interprofessional co-authorship in educational research in a single journal and describe two collaborative models. Methods: The paper has two sections. (1) A review of co-authorship in 113 papers published in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education over a three and a half year period (2014 to 2017). (2) Two models of collaboration in educational research are described.

Results: The literature review highlighted a pattern of almost no international collaborations but close to 27% of papers with interprofessional collaborations. Two collaborative models were presented, one an international and intraprofessional model and the second an international and interprofessional research approach.

Conclusions: It is argued that creating consortiums with international and interprofessional health professionals will progress the quality of educational research in physical therapy, assisting with our educational decision-making and further improving on our learning and teaching practices.

Keywords:

• Research collaboration
• international co-authorship
• interprofessional educational research