REHB1001 Physiotherapy Studies 101

How REHB1001 is assessed

Weights are taken from the Semester 2 2026 assessment summary on the course site and agree with the University's public course page, which lists Skills Demonstration 30%, Interview 30%, Multiple Choice Questions 30% and a further Skills Demonstration 10%; the course site calls that 10% task the Portfolio. The Skills Demonstration and the Viva are hurdle requirements. The roadmap places both hurdle tasks across examination weeks 1 and 2 with the order still to be confirmed, so check the timetable and the assessment instructions on the course site for your times and for the pass standard of each hurdle.

Current REHB1001 dates

Dates are as published in the Semester 2 2026 course roadmap, assessment summary and quiz instructions on the course site. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.

What REHB1001 covers

The course moves from the clinical reasoning modules, through chronic conditions, behaviour change and exercise prescription, to the assessment techniques practised each week in the practical classes.

It belongs to the Bachelor of Physiotherapy (Honours) and follows Human Anatomy 100 and Physiotherapy Studies 100. Teaching runs on three strands each week: online learning and lectures, a tutorial built around clinical reasoning and patient cases, and a practical class in which you learn hands-on assessment techniques on your peers.

The first strand starts with the clinical reasoning modules: critical thinking with its elements, standards and virtues, the biopsychosocial perspective and the WHO ICF framework, the hypothetico-deductive reasoning process, the foci of reasoning and the eight hypothesis categories, common reasoning errors and shared decision making.

From Week 3 the lectures turn to chronic conditions in Australia, their risk factors and their management, behaviour change theories, and a sequence of clinical patterns: osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, fractures and falls, cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, respiratory conditions, Paget's disease and ankylosing spondylitis.

Week 9 covers health coaching and motivational interviewing, Week 10 the priority populations, and Weeks 10 and 11 the principles of exercise therapy and prescription. The practical classes progress from surface anatomy and palpation through active and passive range of movement, resisted static contractions, muscle length testing and manual muscle testing.

Assessment combines two in-class quizzes and a portfolio with two hurdle tasks in the examination period, a skills demonstration and a viva, so the course rewards both what you know and how clearly you can reason and perform aloud.

Worked example · free

Setting a starting strength load and checking it against the pain zones

Key terms

Hypothetico-deductive model

A way of reasoning in which a clinician forms competing hypotheses from early cues and then tests them with targeted examination.

Clinical pattern

A structured summary of a condition's typical history, symptoms, examination findings and management, kept in the course's template.

Biopsychosocial approach

Practice that weighs biological, psychological and social influences together when explaining a person's health and disability.

Hurdle requirement

An assessment task that must be passed in its own right, whatever the marks earned on other tasks.

Skills Demonstration

The practical exam in which a student performs and documents assessment techniques on a patient in front of an examiner.

Viva

An oral examination in which a student answers spoken questions about a case and explains their reasoning.

SOA(Rx)P

The framework of subjective assessment, objective assessment, assessment, treatment and plan used to guide reasoning and notes.

Informed consent

A person's explicit agreement to an assessment after it has been explained and their questions answered.

Goniometer

A hand-held instrument with a fixed arm, a moving arm and an axis, used to measure joint angles.

Resting symptoms

The symptoms a person reports before a test begins, used as the baseline for monitoring change.

Practice thresholds

The minimum standard of competence a physiotherapist must meet to register and keep practising in Australia or New Zealand.

Fitness to practise

A student's capacity to take part safely in practical classes, assessments and placements.

Self-management

A person's active role in looking after their own condition, supported by skills, partnership and services.

Multimorbidity

The presence of two or more chronic conditions in the same person at the same time.

REHB1001 FAQ

Questions students ask in each REHB1001 chapter

Why does a reasoning course start with critical thinking?

The course later calls analytical thinking in practice by another name, clinical reasoning, and judges it with the same elements and standards. Learning the parts of thinking first, then practising them on cases, is the topic's explicit approach, and the Tutorial 1 material can be assessed in the quiz as well as the viva. Chapter 01 · Critical Thinking, Intellectual Standards and Virtues

What is the difference between an activity limitation and a participation restriction?

An activity limitation is difficulty with a task such as walking, lifting or sitting. A participation restriction is being unable to take part in a life situation that matters, such as work, sport or caring for grandchildren. The same impairment can produce both, so write each cue where its wording places it. Chapter 02 · Biopsychosocial Practice and the ICF Framework

What does hypothetico-deductive reasoning mean in practice?

It means forming more than one explanation early, from the referral and the first answers, and then collecting information that would separate them. Each finding supports or weakens a hypothesis, and reassessment after treatment tests the leading one again. It is the model the course's first learning outcome names. Chapter 03 · The Clinical Reasoning Process

How many hypothesis categories are there?

Eight. Topic 5 lists activity and participation, the psychosocial category, problem classification, impairments of function or structure, factors that contribute to the problem, precautions and contraindications, management or treatment, and prognosis. One Tutorial 3 heading says ten, but the list beneath it and the Topic 5 module both give eight, so revise the eight. Chapter 04 · Focus of Reasoning and Hypothesis Categories

What is the difference between priming and confirmation bias?

Priming comes first: prior information, such as a referral or scan report, biases what you expect to find. Confirmation bias follows: you collect and weigh findings that fit the expectation and overlook those that do not. Together they can turn a referral label into a conclusion without any genuine test. Chapter 05 · Reasoning Capability, Errors and Fast and Slow Thinking

Is informed consent the same as shared decision making?

No. Topic 8 warns that SDM is often reduced to agreeing a plan already chosen or to consent for a procedure. Genuine shared decisions explain the analysis, set out the real options, including natural recovery and self-management, give the size of benefits and harms, and invite the person's preference. Chapter 06 · Shared Decision Making and the Four Habits

How many Australians live with a chronic condition?

The Week 3 lecture cites the 2022 National Health Survey: one in two, 49.9%, had at least one. The management handout quotes the 2026 national framework with three in five, about 15.4 million, and two in five with multimorbidity. They come from different sources, so give each with its source. Chapter 07 · Chronic Conditions, Risk Factors and Priority Populations

What are the five principles of motivational interviewing in this course?

The course summarises them as DEARS: developing discrepancy; expressing empathy; amplifying ambivalence; rolling with resistance; and supporting self-efficacy. They are not a sequence; a good conversation uses all five as needed, with the client doing most of the talking, about 80% by the course's guide. Chapter 08 · Behaviour Change Theory and Motivational Interviewing

How long is morning stiffness in each condition?

All three lectures describe stiffness of more than 30 minutes, so duration alone does not separate them. Rheumatoid arthritis stiffness often lasts hours. Combine stiffness with distribution, age, activity response and systemic features before deciding which pattern fits, and say which combination led you there. Chapter 09 · Inflammatory and Degenerative Arthritis

Why is osteoporosis called a silent disease?

Because it is not painful until a fracture occurs, and even then about 70% of vertebral fractures are painless. The lecture advises suspecting one when a person has lost 3 cm of height or developed a marked kyphosis. That is why physiotherapists screen for it as a comorbidity in older patients. Chapter 10 · Osteoporosis, Fractures, Falls and Paget's Disease

What blood pressure counts as hypertension in the course?

The coronary heart disease lecture prints systolic 140 mmHg or more, or diastolic 90 mmHg or more, and the metabolic syndrome lecture adds that it should be found on two different days. Hypertension sits with high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and smoking among the major risk factors. Chapter 11 · Cardiovascular and Metabolic Conditions

How do asthma and COPD differ?

Asthma is airway inflammation with muscle tightening, diagnosed by bronchodilator reversibility, and generally has a positive prognosis when well managed. COPD is obstruction that is not fully reversible and progresses, with smoking as the first risk factor. The two can co-exist, and asthma is a COPD risk factor. Chapter 12 · Chronic Respiratory Conditions: Asthma and COPD

What is the adult physical activity guideline in the course?

The lecture, citing the American College of Sports Medicine and American Heart Association, gives 30 minutes of moderate cardio on five days, 150 minutes in total, or 20 minutes of vigorous cardio on three days with strength training twice a week. For additional benefit it suggests 300 minutes of moderate activity. Chapter 13 · Exercise Therapy Principles and Prescription

When should overpressure be applied?

Only when the active movement is complete and pain-free and the condition is not irritable. The manual explains that an active movement only counts as normal if firm overpressure can be added without pain, so overpressure checks for symptoms at the very end of range. Chapter 14 · Range of Movement, Palpation and Resisted Contractions

Why does the course start a muscle test at grade 3?

Practical 9 tells you to set the patient up for grade 3 first, testing whether they can move against gravity. If they can, add resistance to test grades 4 and 5; if they cannot, reposition in the horizontal plane with gravity eliminated to test grades 0 to 2. Chapter 15 · Muscle Length Testing and Manual Muscle Testing

How to study for the exam

Work the three strands together each week rather than in blocks. After each condition lecture, fill in the clinical pattern template while it is fresh, then close your notes and recall its headings: history, symptoms and their behaviour, examination findings, precautions and management. Explain one or two conditions aloud every week, because the viva tests recall and spoken reasoning.

Before each tutorial, revise the reasoning topic it uses, so that you can sort cues into the ICF and the hypothesis categories quickly. For the practical skills, practise in groups of three with one person as therapist, one as patient and one as examiner, using the random card generators and the safety checklist; time yourself to 20 minutes and always finish with the documentation.

Use the practice quizzes to find gaps, then return to the content rather than memorising answers. In the last weeks, rehearse full viva answers from dot points and run complete skills cards until consent, monitoring and recording happen without prompting.

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