The purpose of the study was to examine clinical education placement data to generate a profile of providers and examine the students' exposure to health care and educational factors during clinical education. A retrospective audit of clinical placement rosters was undertaken for 3 calendar years (2001)(2002)(2003) 1 Clinical education is an integral part of physiotherapy programs and is reliant on strong relationships with clinical providers in a variety of health care settings.The challenge of securing sufficient high-quality clinical education placements to meet the What is known about the topic? Clinical education is an integral part of physiotherapy programs and is reliant on major contributions and strong relationships with clinical providers in health care settings. Health care and educational environments have been changing over the last decade, and securing sufficient high-quality clinical education placements to meet the needs of physiotherapy students is increasingly difficult. What does this paper add?This study establishes a profile of clinical education providers for one of the largest educational institutions training physiotherapists. From 2001-2003 the demand increased by 210 placements (16.5%). The major providers were large public hospitals who provided 85.8% of placements. It was found that aside from experience in the private sector the students had a wide range of exposure to a variety of clinical sites, locations and health care sectors. What are the implications for practitioners?The study highlights that graduates not only meet entry-level standards but also have exposure to a range of health care and educational factors. However, the contribution of the private sector in physiotherapy clinical education needs to increase.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students' attitudes towards and knowledge of older people changed throughout the physiotherapy undergraduate program. Students' demographic information and attitudes towards and knowledge of older people were gathered via repeated question-responses over three points of time during the 4-year program. Validated instruments--the Geriatric Attitudinal Scale (GAS) and the Facts on Ageing Quiz 1 (FAQ1)--were used to measure participants' attitudes and knowledge of older people. The FAQ1 yielded two variables: knowledge as percentage of FAQ1 correct responses, and ignorance as percentage of FAQ1 Don't Know responses. The instruments were administered in Year 2 prior to the students' first clinical (Time 1), immediately after their first clinical (Time 2), and Year 4 just prior to completion of the program (Time 3). Changes over time were analysed using paired t-tests with significance set at p < 0.05. Participants initially demonstrated positive attitudes towards older people with a mean of 73.8% GAS positive responses with no significant change over time (p = 0.56). Initial knowledge about older people was poor with a mean of 43.6% FAQ1 correct responses which increased significantly over time to 51.7% (p = 0.0001). This improvement in knowledge was accompanied by a decrease in ignorance over the study period (p = 0.0001). While attitudes toward older people were positive and knowledge improved over time, the level of knowledge attained was below expectation for beginning practitioners. This finding has implications for the education and training of physiotherapy students.

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