Department of Physical Therapy, University of Toronto MScPT Scholarly Practice Curriculum 2026-2027 Research and Program Evaluation for Physical Therapy Practice
Deadline: Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 4:00 p.m. EDT
Do you have a clinical or education program that needs evaluation? Do you need pilot data for a grant application, or experience with graduate student supervision?
The Department of Physical Therapy invites scientists, postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, and clinicians to submit a project outline relevant to physical therapy and participate as research advisors to a group of 5-6 second year physical therapy students. If needed, research advisors will be paired with an established researcher (PhD) from the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, referred to as the faculty advisor, who has experience with graduate student supervision. We recommend a minimum of two advisors and will accept a maximum of three advisors (not including the faculty advisor). Examples of previous projects are available on our website.
Timeline, Activities, and Role of Advisors in the Scholarly Practice Curriculum
Unit 6 (July 13, 2026 to August 14, 2026)
Advisors will meet with and orient students to the project. Students will then complete two sessions on developing research questions and literature outlines and conducting a literature search. Students will also complete the TCPS2 Core Module.
Scholarly Practice I - Unit 7 (3 weeks: September 8, 2026 to September 25, 2026)
Student groups develop a research protocol. Advisors facilitate this process with the support of the faculty advisor (if applicable) and a teaching assistant. Advisors meet weekly with students and review the final research protocol with a quick turnaround time of 2-3 business days. Advisors submit the protocol for ethics approval.
Research Mondays
Throughout Unit 10 (January 6, 2027 to March 26, 2027) and Unit 11 (May 18, 2027 to June 4, 2027), Mondays are protected for students to work on their projects. Advisors maintain contact with students through email, phone, and meetings as needed.
Scholarly Practice II - Unit 13 (6 weeks: June 7, 2027 to July 16, 2027)
Students analyse their data, draft a manuscript, and complete and present a poster during the Department of Physical Therapy Research Day. Advisors facilitate data analysis and review drafts of the manuscript and the poster with support from the faculty advisor (if applicable).
A strategic priority in the Department of Physical Therapy Strategic Plan is to foster equity, diversity and inclusion. We will ask students and advisors to consider collecting participant data on gender, Indigenous identity, race, religion, ethnic origin, and other personal information to describe the diversity of their study participants.
Projects must be relevant to physical therapy and can include a:
qualitative study (example: in-depth interviews or focus groups)
e-survey
chart review (requires review of 10 charts to confirm data are available)
program evaluation
pilot study (Quantitative or Qualitative)
secondary data analysis
no literature, scoping or systematic reviews
no multi or mixed methods (projects involving quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis are not feasible in the MScPT curriculum)
Evaluation Criteria
Projects will be selected based on the following 3 criteria:
Quality of the project description,
Relevance of the project to physical therapy, and
Feasibility of the project in relation to the timelines of the MScPT research curriculum, and the research capacity of the students.
Online Project Submission
Deadline: Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 4:00 p.m. EST
*NEW* We are using MS Forms for project submission.
Links to Resources for Project Submission
MScPT Project Template: Clicking the link will automatically download a Word doc template for the project outline. We recommend that you circulate a draft of your project description in Word to your co-advisors and when ready to submit, copy and paste into the online form.
