CQUniversity Unit Profile.

Practical Assessment (15%)

Assessment Type Practical Assessment

Task Description

This practical assessment will include both assessment and treatment components. Specifically, you may be asked to demonstrate motion palpation, and mobilisation or adjustive technique skills pertinent to the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand, and (possibly the) hip regions. This will be conducted in Week 5. 

There are 3 sections to the practical assessment:

1. Hygiene, professionalism, patient handling, and consent

2. Technique

3. Clinical reasoning and justification

Following each demonstrated technique, students will be required to provide a brief verbal explanation (30–45 seconds) outlining:

- the clinical indication for the technique
- the key patient features supporting its use
- expected therapeutic effect
- one contraindication or scenario where it would not be appropriate

Students must demonstrate overall minimum competency across the assessment to achieve a passing standard.

AI Assessment scale tool descriptors:

1 - No Gen AI The assessment is completed entirely without Al assistance in a controlled environment, ensuring that students rely solely on their existing knowledge, understanding, and skills You must not use Al at any point during the assessment. You must demonstrate your core skills and knowledge.

Further, the 72-hour grace period does not apply.

The assessment criteria for this task are designed to evaluate your ability to demonstrate safe, effective, and clinically appropriate practical skills, integrated with clinical reasoning.

A detailed rubric will be provided on Moodle. The assessment will examine your ability to:

- Demonstrate professionalism and patient safety, including infection control, patient handling, and obtaining informed consent
- Perform technical skills accurately and effectively, including correct patient positioning, practitioner setup, contact points, and controlled execution of mobilisation or adjustment techniques
- Apply clinical reasoning to justify technique selection, including identifying appropriate indications and linking decisions to patient presentation
- Explain the expected therapeutic effect of the selected technique
- Recognise contraindications and clinical risk, including when a technique would not be appropriate

Practical Assessment (15%)

Assessment Type Practical Assessment

Task Description

This practical assessment will include both assessment and treatment components. Specifically, you may be asked to demonstrate motion palpation and mobilisation or adjustive technique skills pertinent to the hip, knee, ankle and foot regions. This will be conducted in Week 8.

There are 3 sections to the practical assessment:

1. Hygiene, professionalism, patient handling, and consent
2. Technique
3. Clinical reasoning and justification

Following each demonstrated technique, students will be required to provide a brief verbal explanation (30–45 seconds) outlining:

- the clinical indication for the technique
- the key patient features supporting its use
- expected therapeutic effect
- one contraindication or scenario where it would not be appropriate

Students must demonstrate overall minimum competency across the assessment to achieve a passing standard.

AI Assessment scale tool descriptors:

1 - No Gen AI The assessment is completed entirely without Al assistance in a controlled environment, ensuring that students rely solely on their existing knowledge, understanding, and skills You must not use Al at any point during the assessment. You must demonstrate your core skills and knowledge.

Further, the 72-hour grace period does not apply.

Assessment Due Date Week 8 Tuesday (08 Sept 2026) 11:45 am AEST

The assessment criteria for this task are designed to evaluate your ability to demonstrate safe, effective, and clinically appropriate practical skills, integrated with clinical reasoning.

A detailed rubric will be provided on Moodle. The assessment will examine your ability to:

- Demonstrate professionalism and patient safety, including infection control, patient handling, and obtaining informed consent
- Perform technical skills accurately and effectively, including correct patient positioning, practitioner setup, contact points, and controlled execution of mobilisation or adjustment techniques
- Apply clinical reasoning to justify technique selection, including identifying appropriate indications and linking decisions to patient presentation
- Explain the expected therapeutic effect of the selected technique
- Recognise contraindications and clinical risk, including when a technique would not be appropriate

Clinical Reasoning Case (20%)

Task Description 

You will be provided with a patient case involving an extraspinal complaint. The case will be provided via Moodle and will include incomplete and potentially conflicting clinical information. You are required to demonstrate clinical reasoning, rather than reproduce guideline-based answers, across a total of 900 words. This may include findings that do not align with a single diagnosis. You are expected to prioritise, justify, and make defensible clinical decisions under uncertainty. Marks are awarded based on the quality of reasoning, justification, and application to the case.

Part A – Clinical Reasoning (300 words)

A1 – Diagnoses & Justification

• Name your top 2 working diagnoses (ranked)
• Justify why #1 over #2 using specific case findings

A2 – Missing Information & Impact

• Identify key missing information (max 3 items)
• Explain how each would influence your diagnosis

Part B – Management Decision-Making (300 words)

B1 – Management Plan & Justification

• Outline management for first 1–2 sessions including:
  • manual therapy (if appropriate)
  • exercise / physical activity
  • patient communication
• Justify prioritisation

B2 – What You Will NOT Do

• Identify what you would not do for management
• Justify why it is not appropriate

Part C – Clinical Judgement & Uncertainty (300 words)

C1 – When would you change your plan?

• Identify 1–2 clinical changes that would make you modify your approach

C2 – Alternative option

• Name one alternative management option
• Critically appraise your primary approach against this alternative, highlighting specific trade-offs that justify your choice.

AI Assessment scale tool descriptors:

To help you use Generative AI tools in a transparent, flexible, and responsible way, you are encouraged to explore the
following practical framework that guides your ethical and effective AI use in your assessment. For this assessment,
descriptor 2 is applied: 

Al may be used for pre-task activities such as brainstorming, outlining and initial research. This level focuses on the
effective use of Al for planning, synthesis, and ideation, but assessments should emphasise the ability to develop and
refine these ideas independently.

You may use Al for planning, idea development, and research. Your final submission should show how you have
developed and refined these ideas.

The assessment criteria for this task are designed to evaluate your ability to demonstrate clinical reasoning, decision-making, and application of evidence to patient scenarios.

A detailed rubric will be provided on Moodle. The assessment will examine your ability to:

- Diagnose and prioritise clinical presentations, including justification of diagnostic reasoning
- Identify and interpret missing clinical information and explain its impact on decision-making
- Develop and justify a patient-specific management plan, including appropriate inclusion and exclusion of interventions
- Demonstrate clinical judgement, including recognising when to modify management and considering alternative approaches
- Apply evidence to support clinical reasoning and decision-making

The in-class test will test theoretical knowledge presented across all 12 weeks of this term. It will include a mix of question types to allow you to demonstrate your knowledge. The test will be run through Moodle and will take place on campus in a pre-booked computer lab (TBA).

AI Assessment scale tool descriptors: 

1 No Gen AI

The assessment is completed entirely without Al assistance in a controlled environment, ensuring that students rely solely on their existing knowledge, understanding, and skills

You must not use Al at any point during the assessment. You must demonstrate your core skills and knowledge.

Further, the 72-hour grace period does not apply.

This assessment task will assess all unit learning outcomes, comprising lecture and tutorial material, which relate to the (chiropractic) management of extra-spinal abnormalities. It comprises clinical anatomy relevant to extra-spinal articulations, physical examination of extra-spinal joints, determining appropriate differential diagnoses, identifying appropriate therapeutic interventions and providing prognostic information. 

Specifically learning outcomes relate to:

1. Relate the clinical anatomy and potential functional changes relevant to extra-spinal articulations
2. Perform an appropriate physical examination of extraspinal joints, and determine appropriate differential diagnoses
3. Interpret changes in extra-spinal articulations and identify appropriate therapeutic interventions
4. Perform appropriate chiropractic techniques in the management of extraspinal abnormalities.