Personal, interpersonal, and organizational influences on student satisfaction with clinical education.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Understanding the factors that contribute to student satisfaction may lead to improved education in physical therapy. This study tested the extent to which variables in the personal, interpersonal, and organizational domains influence satisfaction with clinical experiences. SUBJECTS: Physical therapist students (N = 113) in 2 phases of their clinical experiences at one private school participated. METHODS: A nonexperimental design tested 3 models for predicting overall satisfaction. Students completed 3 surveys and weekly logs during 8-week-long clinical experiences. RESULTS: The survey return rate was 96%. Overall satisfaction with the clinical experience was predicted by life satisfaction, gender, off-site events, on-site events, interaction between negative events and gender, instructor teaching skills, interaction between education phase and gender, variety, and use of selected orientation methods. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION: Overall satisfaction is predicted by variables in all 3 domains. Overall satisfaction was best explained by factors in the interpersonal domain and student gender. Causal research is needed to confirm whether satisfaction can be improved and whether the results apply to other students at other schools. The relationships among satisfaction, performance, later job satisfaction, and career commitment need to be explored further.