Clinical learning spaces

This understanding of capability acknowledges that professional practitioners are required to be ready and able to challenge current practices, to act ethically in uncertain and dynamic condynamic contexts and to have the courage and insight to constructively challenge and change both themselves and the world for the better. Through a fine-grained examination of clinical workplaces as education contexts, this research has contributed a rich and deep interpretation of clinical education. Clinical learning spaces formed at the confluences of individual dimensions of clinical workplaces and individual students' dispositions were found to be complex, fluid, relational and uniquely experienced spaces that sparked powerful and meaningful learning for students. My research revealed that clinical learning spaces could be envisioned as crucibles that shaped the development of physiotherapy students' professional practice capabilities. The key contributions of this research are new knowledge of professional practice capabilities, the nature of clinical learning spaces, and the manner in which professional practice capabilities are developed within those spaces. This knowledge is drawn together in a professional development crucible model. This model allows simultaneous consideration of the complexity of clinical education contexts, the capabilities that underpin professional practice and the manner in which these capabilities are developed and shaped by clinical contexts.