Training physiotherapy students' abilities in scoring the motor assessment scale for stroke

The purpose of this study was to test the ability of students in scoring an observational tool for measuring physical disability, the Motor Assessment Scale (MAS) for stroke, before and after training in order to establish whether current training and testing procedures for students are adequate. Sixteen students were tested using items 1-8 of the MAS before and after training. The students were required to observe the videotaped performance of four patients with stroke being assessed using the MAS and to score the performance of each patient. After training, the students were retested. The percent exact agreement between students' scores and criterion scores was calculated for each student and for each item. They were then compared before and after training using Student t test. When compared with criterion, the students achieved a mean of 79.6% (standard deviation, 10.8%) exact agreement before training and 83.9% (standard deviation, 6.7%) after training. While this increase in percent exact agreement was not statistically significant (p = 0.10), all students reached at least 75% exact agreement after training. Percent exact agreement on the items increased significantly (p = 0.03) so that seven of the eight items reached at least 75% exact agreement after training. The results of this study suggest that training is important to ensure that all students reach an acceptable standard.