Assessing Global Citizenship After Participation in Service Learning in Physical Therapy Education

Abstract

Promoting a global perspective has become a recent topic in health care education. (Frenk, et. al., 2010)  The idea is to produce graduates who are capable of delivering culturally appropriate services to communities in need, both locally and globally.  Various didactic components and pedagogies can be utilized but the outcome of producing a graduate who acts on that education is unclear.  The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of service learning on promoting global competency in graduates from Wheeling Jesuit University’s (WJU) Physical Therapy Program. This doctorate program includes service-learning courses that expose students to local, regional, and international experiences.  Graduates of the program over the last ten years were surveyed and the data were analyzed using SPSS software.  Results indicate that graduates who participated in international experiences were more likely to respond positively to participation in global outreach programs in the future.