Research-based occupational therapy education: An exploration of students’ and faculty members’ experiences and perceptions

• Main Authors: Bonsaksen, T. (Author), Helgøy, K.V (Author), RydlandOlsen, N. (Author), Smeby, J.-C (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2021
• Subjects: adult; Adult; article; Attitude of Health Personnel; clinical article; curriculum; Curriculum; education; Education, Medical; expectation; Faculty; female; Female; Focus Groups; health care delivery; health personnel attitude; health student; human; human experiment; Humans; information processing; interview; male; Male; medical education; medical student; Norway; occupational therapy; Occupational Therapy; occupational therapy education; occupational therapy student; perception; procedures; psychology; qualitative research; Qualitative Research; skill; student; Students; Students, Medical; university
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 Introduction One argument for introducing research in bachelor‘s degree in health care is to ensure the quality of future health care delivery. The requirements for research-based education have increased, and research on how research-based education is experienced is limited, especially in bachelor health care education programmes. The aim of this study was to explore how occupational therapy students and faculty members experienced and perceived research-based education. Methods This qualitative, interpretative description consisted of three focus group interviews with occupational therapy students in their final year (n = 8, 6 and 4), and three focus group interviews with faculty members affiliated with occupational therapy programmes in Norway (n = 5, 2 and 5). Interviewing both students and faculty members enabled us to explore the differences in their experiences and perceptions. Results Five integrative themes emerged from the analysis: “introducing research early”, “setting higher expectations”, “ensuring competence in research methods”, “having role models” and “providing future best practice”. Research was described as an important aspect of the occupational therapy bachelor program as it helps ensure that students achieve the necessary competence for offering future best practice. Students expressed a need to be introduced to research early in the program, and they preferred to have higher expectations regarding use of research. Competence in research methods and the importance of role models were also highlighted. Conclusions Undergraduate health care students are expected to be competent in using research. Findings from our study demonstrated that the participants perceived the use of research during training as important to ensure future best practice. Increasing the focus on research in the programme’s curricula and efforts to improve students’ formal training in research-specific skills could be a starting point towards increased use of research in the occupational therapy profession. © 2020 Helgøy et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.