Abstract

Background. The education of physiotherapists in Poland takes place at three types of university-level schools: medical universities, universities of physical education and universities of other orientations. The orientations differ in terms of: educational traditions, teaching quality and various approaches to the subject of study. The objective of this study was to analyze the perception of the futurę career in physiotherapy by comparing first- and third-year students from universities of different orientations. Material and methods. The study involved 1145 students from 11 university-level schools. The same students were sun/eyed twice: during the first and third year of their studies. The research tool was a yoluntary anonymous questionnaire designed by the authors containing a total of 88 questions. The analysis (Statsoft STATISTICA 8) was based on the following non-parametric statistical tests: the chi-square (x2) test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test (p<0.05). Results. The third-year students were morę willing to undertake Master-level studies and significantly less willing to embarkon their chosen career than when they were in the first year. While the familiarity with opportunities for starting their career as physiotherapists had increased significantly, most students still declared that they were not familiar with them. Most students claimed that it was easy to findajob in other European Union countnes. Conclusions. 1. In the study group, the school orientation had no significant influence on the students’attitude towards their futurę chosen career. 2. It is important that the education curricula for the students of Bachelor-level studies in physiotherapy be complemented with objecth/e source.

Key words:

students, vocational attitudes, starting a career, European Union