Abstract:

Introduction:
The evolution of society has given rise to the demand for professionals who are increasingly better trained for their integration into the labor market, with competitive, open, and quality training. Definitely, this implies a great advance in the world of physiotherapy education and a methodological change, such as e-learning. The different Universities are promoting non-face-to-face teaching through the development of virtual environments to adapt to international teaching, particularly at the level of specialization or postgraduate studies (when the student already has an initial knowledge of the subject).This fact has generated a debate about the capacity of online education to transmit the same level of knowledge as face-to-face teaching, especially in those contents of a practical nature. The objective of this study was to analyze the usefulness of the e-learning modality for the acquisition of skills and knowledge related to the evaluation and treatment of patients in postgraduate physiotherapy studies.

Methodology:
Twenty students of the Specialty of Physiotherapy in Traumatology and Orthopedics of the Universidad Marista Valladolid (México) participated in the study. In the subject "Kinesiology of The Musculoskeletal System", the professor (from University of Valencia, Spain) described different concepts related to three dimensions: manual tests (passive techniques), motor control tests (passive and active techniques combined), and exercises (active techniques). Furthermore, it was assessed whether the presence of an assistant as a model with the teacher facilitated the assimilation of the techniques. To evaluate this learning strategy's effectiveness, the students evaluated, through an 11-point scale, the ability of clinical cases to facilitate understanding of each dimension of concepts, being 0 "absolutely useless" and 10 "absolutely useful".

Results:
The 3 dimensions of concepts analyzed obtained a good score (higher than 7 out of 10) according to the perception of the students, in terms of ability to facilitate understanding. However, the results differed slightly according to the type of concept applied, obtaining a mean of 8.33 (SD = 1.74) for the concepts related to motor control, 7.9 (SD = 2.02) for the concepts related to exercises, and a 7.8 (SD = 2.31) for manual tests. In addition, the presence of an assistant with the teacher improved the assimilation of the technique with a mean of 9.9 (SD = 0.30).

Conclusions:
According to the results of this study, the use of e-learning strategies seems useful to facilitate the understanding of practical concepts in postgraduate Physiotherapy studies. In those dimensions of concepts that require the practical application of the knowledge taught, such as the performance of exercises, motor control, or manual tests, they seem to have a similar utility. Meanwhile, the presence of an assistant next to the teacher clearly facilitates the assimilation of practical concepts. Therefore, the results show that e-learning can be a valid and useful option in physiotherapy distance education.

Keywords:

Education, e-learning, Health Sciences, technology, innovation.