title: A systematic review and meta-analysis of selected motor learning principles in physiotherapy and medical education.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Learning of procedural skills is an essential component in the education of future health professionals. There is little evidence on how procedural skills are best learnt and practiced in education. There is a need for educators to know what specific interventions could be used to increase learning of these skills. However, there is growing evidence from rehabilitation science, sport science and psychology that learning can be promoted with the application of motor learning principles. The aim of this review was to systematically evaluate the evidence for selected motor learning principles in physiotherapy and medical education. The selected principles were: whole or part practice, random or blocked practice, mental or no additional mental practice and terminal or concurrent feedback.
  
  
  METHODS
  CINAHL, Cochrane Central, Embase, Eric and Medline were systematically searched for eligible studies using pre-defined keywords. Included studies were evaluated on their risk of bias with the Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The search resulted in 740 records, following screening for relevance 15 randomised controlled trials including 695 participants were included in this systematic review. Most procedural skills in this review related to surgical procedures. Mental practice significantly improved performance on a post-acquisition test (SMD: 0.43, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.85). Terminal feedback significantly improved learning on a transfer test (SMD: 0.94, 95% CI 0.18 to 1.70). There were indications that whole practice had some advantages over part practice and random practice was superior to blocked practice on post-acquisition tests. All studies were evaluated as having a high risk of bias. Next to a possible performance bias in all included studies the method of sequence generation was often poorly reported.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is some evidence to recommend the use of mental practice for procedural learning in medical education. There is limited evidence to conclude that terminal feedback is more effective than concurrent feedback on a transfer test. For the remaining parameters that were reviewed there was insufficient evidence to make definitive recommendations.
authors.affiliation: Queen Margaret University, School of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Edinburgh, Scotland. martin.sattelmayer@gmail.com.|University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), School of Health Sciences, Leukerbad, Switzerland. martin.sattelmayer@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sattelmayer
authors.affiliation: University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), School of Health Sciences, Leukerbad, Switzerland. simone.elsig@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Elsig
authors.affiliation: University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), School of Health Sciences, Leukerbad, Switzerland. roger.hilfiker@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hilfiker
authors.affiliation: Queen Margaret University, School of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Edinburgh, Scotland. GBaer@qmu.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Baer
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities / Q000193:education*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis