Practical steps and collegiality in the building of podiatry curricula to meet accreditation and health sector employability demands

Abstract

Historically, mixed arrangements have been in place between educational institutions and podiatrist registration bodies to evaluate the capacity of programs to adequately prepare new graduates for clinical practice. The national scheme for the registration of health practitioners introduced in 2010, followed by a national system for accreditation of respective programs, has however seen significant legislative and policy change to requirements for evidencing effectiveness of podiatry programs. In addition, there has been a local and international change in emphasis by stakeholders in higher education, government, professional regulation, quality assurance and employment, towards measureable, explicit student learning outcomes. Curricula initiatives at La Trobe University, including large scale systematic review and redesign of all courses within the Faculty of Health Sciences commencing in 2005, and a subsequent university wide ‘Design for Learning’ project (La Trobe University, 2009), provided a timely platform for podiatry staff to respond to critical emerging imperatives for increased program transparency and accountability. The case study presented in this paper provides a practical, in-context explanation of an approach adopted to develop and embed Podiatry Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). It draws on the podiatry profession’s competency standards and produces aligned curricula (Biggs & Tang, 2007) where fine grain subject Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs), underpinned by related learning and assessment activities, cumulatively address student development of the CLOs. Systematic and comprehensive documented evidence demonstrates when and how key podiatry competencies are developed, attained and assessed in these podiatry curricula.