Valuable occupational therapy fieldwork educator behaviors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate fieldwork educator behaviors that are valuable from the perspective of Level II occupational therapy and occupational therapist assistant students and fieldwork educators. 85 fieldwork educators and 37 students from Eastern and Western parts of the United States. The 5 competency categories of the Self Assessment Tool for Fieldwork Educator Competency were used as the basis for developing the survey items and data was analyzed with non-parametric statistics to check for differences among groups of respondents. Students and fieldwork educators generally ranked the value of the behaviors in the survey as the same. There were differences noted between responses of level II students on first, second, and third placements regarding supervision behaviors of fieldwork educators. (Chi square=6.59, p=0.04 and Chi square=7.95, p=0.02). The alignment of opinion of students and fieldwork educators is important in that it reinforces the common goal of academic programs, students, and fieldwork educators. More research needs to be done in order to understand the impact of placement order on the rankings of valued fieldwork educator behaviors.