Brooke Flew¹
Lucy Chipchase², Darren Lee³ and Jodie McClelland¹
1 La Trobe University
2 Flinders University
3 Australian Physiotherapy Council

Currently, to work in Australia, overseas-qualified physiotherapists (candidates) must pass an In-person Clinical Competency Assessment (ICCA) to gain registration in Australia (APC, 2021). However, the requirement to be in-person presents challenges for candidates not residing in Australia and could not be conducted during the COVID pandemic. An alternative Online Clinical Competency Assessment (OCCA) was developed and determined feasible. We then sought to examine the accuracy of the OCCA to distinguish between competent and non- competent performance. 

Candidates on the waiting list for ICCA assessment between March-June 2023 were invited to participate. Participants completed both OCCA and ICCA and were assessed for competency on the same criteria by a cohort of experienced assessors. 

Sixty-three candidates (mean (SD) age of 34.3 (4.8) years, 71.4% female, trained as a physiotherapist in 22 different countries) were recruited. The pass rate was higher for the ICCA (68.3%) than the OCCA (54.0%). Forty candidates (63.5%) scored the same on both assessments. Of the remaining 23 candidates, 16 (70%) failed the OCCA and passed the ICCA. 

There were similar pass rates between the OCCA and the ICCA, with just under 2/3rds of candidates receiving the same outcome on both assessments. The unfamiliarity of the online environment, or the additional difficulty of needing to describe rather than perform hands-on techniques explain the tendency for higher failure rates in the OCCA. 

Further analysis of the results is required to investigate if the OCCA is a suitable alternative to the ICCA. 

References (maximum three) 

Australian Physiotherapy Council. (2021). Standard Assessment Pathway. Retrieved 6 May 2021 from https://physiocouncil.com.au/overseas-practitioners/standard-assessment-pathway/