Occupational Therapy Enhanced Practice Education Approach: Student Perspectives
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18552/ijpblhsc.v5i2.406Keywords:
occupational therapy, practice education, quality student experience, work integrated learningAbstract
It has been suggested that to provide occupational therapy students with the best opportunities to learn while on a placement, it is important that they enter a supportive and welcoming environment that fosters quality learning experiences. To achieve a quality practice education experience, the occupational therapy team at Barwon Health developed and implemented the Barwon Health Occupational Therapy Enhanced Practice Education Approach (BHOTEPEA). The aim of this research was to ascertain occupational therapy students’ perceptions of the impact of the implementation of three core components of the BHOTEPEA: the student orientation process, facilitated practicums and reflective practice sessions. The method utilised by this study was an on-line survey to collect quantitative and qualitative data from occupational therapy students who had undertaken placements at Barwon Health between December 2014 and December 2015. Thirty-six out of 125 occupational therapy students responded to the survey (response rate of 29.8%). Students indicated that the approach assisted them to feel welcomed and prepared for placement, develop their practice skills and abilities, and develop their reflective practice skills. In conclusion, it appears that the BHOTEPEA supports the key elements of a quality practice education experience for occupational therapy students identified in the literature, including a welcoming learning environment, detailed orientation, clear expectations and a graded program of learning experiences. The findings from this research suggest other placement sites may be able to enhance the quality of their student placement experiences by adopting the three core components of the BHOTEPEA.
References
Buchanan, J., Jenkins, S., and Scott, L. (2014) Student Clinical Education in Australia: A University of Sydney Scoping Study. Sydney: The University of Sydney
Given, L.M. (2016) 100 Questions (and Answers) About Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Hanson, D. (2011) ‘The perspectives of fieldwork educators regarding Level II fieldwork students’. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 25 (2-3), 164–177 https://doi.org/10.3109/07380577.2011.561420
Health Education and Training Institute and NSW Interdisciplinary Clinical Training Networks (2015) Clinical placements in NSW, 2015. [online] available from < http://www.heti.nsw.gov.au/Global/SPE/ICTN/Clinical%20Placements%20in%20NSW%20reports%20-%20second%20edition.pdf [6 December 2017]
Ingwersen, K., Lyons, N., and Hitch, D. (2016) ‘Perceptions of fieldwork in occupational therapy’. The Clinical Teacher, 14 (1), 55–59 https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.12518
James, K.L. and Musselman, L. (2006) ‘Commonalities in level II fieldwork failure’. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 19, 67–81 https://doi.org/10.1080/J003v19n04_05
Kirke, P., Layton, N., and Sim, J. (2007) ‘Informing fieldwork design: Key elements to quality in fieldwork education for undergraduate occupational therapy students’. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 54 (S1), S13–S22 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1630.2007.00696.x
Larkin, H. and Pépin, G. (2013) ‘Becoming a reflective practitioner’. in Clinical and Fieldwork Placement in the Health Professions. 2nd edn. ed. by Stagnitti, K., Schoo, A., and Welch D. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 31–42
Maidment, J (2013) ‘Getting ready for placement’. in Clinical and Fieldwork Placement in the Health Professions. 2nd edn. ed. by Stagnitti, K., Schoo, A., Welch D. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 3–12
Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. 2003 ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines’. in Improving Student Learning: Improving Student Learning Theory and Practice – Ten Years On. ed. by Rust, C. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development
Mulholland, S. and Derdall, M. (2005) ‘A strategy for supervising occupational therapy students at community sites’. Occupational Therapy International, 12 (1), 28–43 https://doi.org/10.1002/oti.13
Nemeth, E. and McAllister, L. (2013) ‘Learning from failure’. in Clinical and Fieldwork Placement in the Health Professions, 2nd edn. ed. by Stagnitti, K., Schoo, A., Welch D. South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 115–127
Nicola-Richmond, K., Butterworth, B., and Hitch, D. (2016) ‘What factors contribute to failure of fieldwork placement? Perspectives of supervisors and university fieldwork educators’. World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin, 72 (2), 117–124 https://doi.org/10.1080/14473828.2016.1149981
Nicola-Richmond, K., Pépin, G., and Larkin, H. (2016) ‘Transformation from student to occupational therapist: Using the Delphi technique to identify the threshold concepts of occupational therapy’. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 63(2), 95–104
Pépin, G. (2017) ‘Reflecting on practice’. In Occupational Therapy for People Experiencing Illness, Injury or Impairment: Promoting Occupation and Participation .7th edn. ed. by Curtin, M., Adams. J, and Egan. Edinburgh, UK: Elsevier, 781–788
Rodger, S., Fitzgerald, C., Davila, W., Millar, F. and Allison, H. (2011) ‘What makes a quality occupational therapy practice placement? Students’ and practice educators’ perspectives’. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 58 (3), 195–202 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1630.2010.00903.x
Sladyk, K. and Sheckley, B. (2001) ‘Clinical reasoning and reflective practice: Implications of fieldwork activities’. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 13 (1), 11–22 https://doi.org/10.1080/J003v13n01_02
Thorne, S. (2016) Interpretive Description: Qualitative Research for Applied Practice. 2nd edn. New York, NY: Routledge
World Federation of Occupational Therapists (2016) Minimum Standards for the Education of Occupational Therapists Revised 2016. Forrestfield, Australia: World Federation of Occupational Therapists
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License "Attribution-NonCommercial No Derivs 4.0 International" (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) which permits others to use the publication as long as the authors are appropriately cited.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- The Author grants to Coventry University an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to publish this article in this journal in addition to the licence granted at paragraph 1 of this copyright notice.
