Therapy Graduate Students Research Articles

Marriage & Family Therapy Students Learning Qualitative Research: Frameworks Identified Through Participatory-Observation

In this study, we used participant-observation to achieve grounded theory as we constructed a model outlining how marriage and family therapy graduate students learn qualitative research methods. We identified three major learning frameworks: Pragmatism, Ethics/Morality, and Identity of the Researcher. We also found that certain learning modalities are most congruent for students holding these major frameworks. “Critical learning incidences” appeared to cause a shift or r e -balancing of students ’ frameworks as they learn qualitative research. Application of these findings may help guide instructors who are teaching students with little previous exposure qualitative methodology. Recommendations for future research are also included.

Using Family Case Studies with Graduate Students through Transdisciplinary Graduate Education

Graduate students in early childhood special education, occupational therapy, and physical therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) are educated using a transdisciplinary model in which emerging professionals and families of children with special needs work together by exchanging expertise to jointly solve problems, plan, and implement evidence-based interventions. The goal is to ensure that the early intervention/education experiences achieve desired child and family outcomes. A major component of the preparation of the graduate students is learning to work collaboratively with families. The purpose of this article is to describe the process early childhood special education, occupational therapy, and physical therapy graduate students experience through team-based problem solving with case studies of young children with delays or disabilities and their families.

National Survey Assessing Perceived Multicultural Competence in Art Therapy Graduate Students

Multicultural competence is essential to contemporary art therapy practice. Current education standards require that culturally sound theories and practices be taught along with self-awareness, but there is little research on the effects of such training in art therapy. The current study examined data from the Multicultural Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Survey–Counselor Edition–Revised distributed to students enrolled in a multicultural course in 23 participating graduate art therapy programs in the United States and eastern Canada. The pre- and post-survey scores were compared on three subscales: Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills. Results indicated that student self-perceptions of their multicultural knowledge and skills significantly increased upon the completion of a course, but self-perceptions of their multicultural awareness did not significantly increase. However, limitations in the survey instrument suggest that study results may not demonstrate a true measure of competence; recommendations for addressing multicultural competency in the graduate curriculum are suggested.

Inter-Professional Role Perception and Communication of Preservice Students and Therapists in Schools and Early Intervention

Limited research is available examining inter-professional role perception or communication specific to school and early intervention practice settings. The purpose of this two-phase qualitative study was to describe the inter-professional role perception and communication among occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy graduate students in online courses and therapists working in schools or early intervention. Data were gathered via online discussions and an in-person focus group. Results demonstrated differences in therapist and student role perceptions and understanding of areas of practice overlap. Findings may help educators develop a better understanding of how inter-professional role perceptions and communication are learned.

Artistic, Therapeutic, and Sexually Informed: A Five-Week Human Sexuality Course for Art Therapy Students

This article is a case study of curriculum development and learning outcomes from a five-week human sexuality course for art therapy and marital and family therapy graduate students. First, course context and intentions are introduced. Second, the course format is presented briefly. Third, students’ experiences are illustrated through narrative reflections and art making. Fourth, students’ structured evaluations of the course are displayed through an outcome survey report. Finally, implications for educational and clinical work are discussed.

Professional Identity Perceptions of Dual-Prepared Art Therapy Graduates

This article describes a qualitative study of the development of professional identity in art therapists who also prepare as counselors. Graduates from one university's two distinct master's degree programs were interviewed: (a) art therapy (n = 9) and (b) art therapy combined with counseling (n = 11). Most participants regardless of their degree described their professional identities as a combination of art therapy and counseling, and perceived professional identity in a variety of ways based on distinct contributing factors. Recommendations to support graduates negotiating complex professional identities are offered to art therapy educators and graduate students.

Exploration of spirituality in doctor of physical therapy students and graduate students in non-health disciplines

Background/Aims: The purpose of this study was to explore spirituality in doctor of physical therapy (DPT) students, and to compare these findings with graduate students from other disciplines outside healthcare. An additional purpose was to determine DPT student attitudes towards spirituality and its relevance to their profession. Methods: A brief survey was administered including the 16-item Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES). Findings: A total of 65 DPT students and a total of 132 non-healthcare graduate students completed the survey. Age did not show a statistically significant relationship (r=.051, P>.05) to spirituality in our subjects and was therefore excluded from further analysis. A 2-way, between-subjects ANOVA was performed to test for differences in spirituality scores between the sexes and between the two student groups. There was a significant main effect for sex [F(1,173) =8.771, P=.004]. There was no significant main effect for Academic Major group (P>.05). There were no significant interactions (P>.05). The vast majority of physical therapy students indicated that physical therapists should be concerned with the spiritual health of their clients (81.5%), and that their education should include exposure to spiritual health issues (78.5%). Conclusions: Spirituality in DPT students does not differ significantly from non-healthcare graduate students. DPT students, however, do have high levels of daily spiritual experiences, believe spirituality is important to the profession, and desire training in this area. Physical therapy educational programmes may want to consider expanding this component of the entry-level curriculum.

Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Students’ Satisfaction with Training Regarding Religion and Spirituality

Marriage and family therapists are likely to encounter religious or spiritual clients in their career and thus are encouraged to be aware of their clients’ religious and spirituality. This awareness is often fostered within graduate training programs. This study aims to examine graduate students’ incorporation of religion and spirituality in therapy and their satisfaction with the quality and amount of training programs’ adherence to religion and spirituality. A sample of 135 graduate students from American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy accredited programs completed the survey. Findings showed that graduate students with greater levels of religiosity and spirituality were more likely to perceive it important to address religion/spirituality in therapy and to perceive there is a need for religious/spiritual education. When controlling for religious and spiritual orientations, overall regression results revealed that not having a course on religion and spirituality and perceiving a need for religious/spirituality in education predicted lower satisfaction with the amount and quality of current training surrounding these dimensions. Implications demonstrate the need to address religious/spiritual concepts in the curriculum, supervision, and in marriage and family therapy training.

Interprofessional clinical education for occupational therapy and psychology students: A social skills training program for children with autism spectrum disorders

An interprofessional clinical learning experience was developed for pre-licensure occupational therapy (OT) and psychology graduate students. Students worked in interprofessional teams to plan and implement a social skills training program for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The objectives were to provide a hands-on, student-led clinical experience; facilitate interprofessional collaborative learning through leadership partnerships and teach children with ASD to engage in appropriate social skill behaviors. Concurrently, faculty performed qualitative research to explore how the students worked together to provide intervention to the children. Data were collected via interview, direct observation of student planning sessions and student interprofessional interactions, and collection of posts from an online social network site used for session planning. There were six student participants and two faculty participants. Four themes emerged: learning who I am as a professional, learning to appreciate our professional differences, learning to communicate with each other and figuring it out, for the benefit of the kids. This interprofessional clinical learning experience and research helps ensure that students are adequately prepared to represent their profession as part of a diverse interprofessional health care team.

Adapting Research Instruction to Support the Scholarship of Practice: Practice-Scholar Partnerships

ABSTRACTEvidence-based practice (EBP) is crucial to the success of delivering quality occupational therapy services. The skill to engage in the scholarship of practice is central to being able to create evidence specific to one's everyday practice and leads to an emerging role within occupational therapy called the practice-scholar. The purpose of this retrospective study was to investigate the effectiveness of an instructional approach that engaged the scholarship of practice and the functions of a practice-scholar. Occupational therapy graduate students and practitioners collaborated to develop a practice-based study proposal during a traditional experimental research class. The objective was to apply research concepts contextualized within the natural practice context while developing the role of the practice-scholar in designing outcomes studies. As part of an entry-level research course, students (n == 39) and practitioners (n == 14) were grouped into learning teams and discussed two self-assessments to reflect on their self-efficacy perceptions of practice-scholarship research at the beginning and the end of a series of guided sessions to design a research proposal. Postcourse results show that students' perceptions of self-efficacy improved regarding their abilities to participate in practice-scholarship as a result of the learning partnerships. Anecdotal similarities were found for practitioners. As an instructional method, the learning partnership facilitated the development of foundational knowledge and skills related to becoming practice-scholars through increased self-efficacy in using proposal design. This educational approach proactively used the scholarship of practice research to bridge practice and education using a meaningful, partnership-based model for entry-level graduate students and occupational therapy practitioners.

Three model curricula for teaching clinicians to use the ICF

Purpose. Three systematic programmes to train health professionals to use the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) are described, along with efforts to evaluate their effectiveness.Methods. The first programme was a randomized study comparing the effects of a 2-hour instructor-led programme and a self-directed learning module on ICF-related knowledge, attitudes, and coding skills among occupational therapy graduate students. The second programme was a series of intensive 3.5-day workshops for public sector rehabilitation professionals in South Africa. The third programme involved a series of internet-based teaching modules regarding the ICF for graduate students in rehabilitation counselling.Results. The first project found that both instructor-led and self-guided training formats were effective in improving basic ICF-related knowledge, but only instructor-led training led to a significant improvement in coding skill. It also had more positive effects on ICF-related attitudes. This approach to learning assessment was generalizable to multidisciplinary health professionals in South Africa, who achieved a relatively high degree of coding accuracy after the 3.5-day workshop. Participant evaluations supported the structure, content, and length of the training. Students in the third programme also reported a very positive learning experience and positive views of the ICF.Conclusions. An empirical basis is important for identifying the best and most efficient training methods for particular audiences and specific purposes. The length and format of training can be differentially related to specific training goals (i.e., knowledge, attitudes, and coding skills). Interactive distance learning methods may help to overcome the weaknesses of self-directed training in comparison to face-to-face training.

Design and utility of a web‐based computer‐assisted instructional tool for neuroanatomy self‐study and review for physical and occupational therapy graduate students

The cadaver continues to be the primary tool to teach human gross anatomy. However, cadavers are not available to students outside of the teaching laboratory. A solution is to make course content available through computer-assisted instruction (CAI). While CAI is commonly used as an ancillary teaching tool for anatomy, use of screen space, annotations that obscure the image, and restricted interactivity have limited the utility of such teaching tools. To address these limitations, we designed a Web-based CAI tool that optimizes use of screen space, uses annotations that do not decrease the clarity of the images, and incorporates interactivity across different operating systems and browsers. To assess the design and utility of our CAI tool, we conducted a prospective evaluation of 43 graduate students enrolled in neuroanatomy taught by the Divisions of Physical and Occupational Therapy at the University of Utah, College of Health. A questionnaire addressed navigation, clarity of the images, benefit of the CAI tool, and rating of the CAI tool compared to traditional learning tools. Results showed that 88% of the respondents strongly agreed that the CAI tool was easy to navigate and overall beneficial. Eighty-four percent strongly agreed that the CAI tool was educational in structure identification and had clear images. Furthermore, 95% of the respondents thought that the CAI tool was much to somewhat better than traditional learning tools. We conclude that the design of a CAI tool, with minimal limitations, provides a useful ancillary tool for human neuroanatomy instruction.

The Need to Be Different: Primary Trait Structure and Impact on Projective Drawings

The value set on behavioral variation for its own sake (or the need to be different) is a personality variable nested within social learning theory; a strong need to be different should, in theory, predispose the individual toward originality (including creativity). A self-report inventory measuring this need value (the vDiffer scale; Joy, 1998) motive was administered to undergraduates who also completed the 16 Personality Factor inventory (16PF; Cattell, Cattell, & Cattell, 1993) and House-Tree-Person (H-T-P; Buck, 1948) drawings. Three advanced art therapy graduate students rated the H-T-P protocols for technical proficiency, creativity, and personal adjustment. The need to be different correlated strongly with four primary traits: positively with Q1 (Openness to Change) and M (edness) and negatively with G (Rule-Consciousness) and Q3 (Perfectionism). Several other moderate correlations also emerged. Judgments of the technical proficiency and creativity of H-T-P drawings correlated significantly with the vDiffer score. The need to be different significantly predicted the quality of these projective drawings even when the influence of intelligence (16PF Scale B) was controlled for. The need to be different is associated with a distinctive pattern of traits and higher quality artistic expression.

Partnering with management to implement ergonomics in the industrial setting

The purpose of this study was to describe the collaboration among occupational therapy graduate students, faculty, and managers of an industrial organization in developing safety-training materials for workers. Method: Three managers from an industrial organization sought collaboration from the School of Occupational Therapy. The occupational therapy faculty developed fieldwork experiences and implemented a qualitative research study where data were gathered through interviews, observations, key events, artifacts, and immersion in the field. Results: Changing workers' behaviors required influence from an organizational level, including manager support and role modeling, safety committee involvement, and a strong presence of occupational therapy in the organizational environment. Conclusion: Occupational therapists who provide safety training in industrial settings must become partners with workers and managers, and immerse themselves in the organization to plan strategies that compliment the culture. Occupational therapists' interventions for safety training should match the needs and values of the managers.

Does modification of the Innsbruck and the Glasgow Coma Scales improve their ability to predict functional outcome?

The accurate prediction of functional outcome requires the development of multivariate models. To enhance their contribution to such models, the predictive power of each component must be optimized. To improve the predictive power of coma scales as the first step in building more sophisticated multivariate models to predict specific levels of functional outcome. Prospective descriptive study. Neurology and neurosurgery intensive care unit (NNICU) in a tertiary care academic center. Eighty-four patients with acute traumatic brain injury, intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, or ischemic stroke. None. The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and Innsbruck Coma Scale (ICS) were administered within 24 hours of admission to the NNICU and then at 48-hour intervals until discharge of the patient from the NNICU. The assessments were performed by 3 occupational therapy graduate students working under the supervision of the medical director of the NNICU. The functional outcome at 3 months after discharge from the hospital was assessed by telephone by the same nurse using the following categories: (1) dead, (2) receiving nursing home or custodial care, (3) home with help, or (4) independent. Cronbach's alpha estimates of reliability for each scale were computed using all scores obtained during the study. The analyses indicated that the verbal response item of the GCS and the oral automatisms item of the ICS were less reliable in this patient population. The scales were modified by deleting those items, and predictive validity for the original and modified scales was computed using a discriminant function of the admission scores. Before modification, both scales were best at predicting independence (GCS and ICS, 71% correct) and mortality (GCS, 60% correct; ICS, 56% correct). The modifications produced a modest improvement in the ability of both scales to better predict levels of outcome (modified GCS: home with help, 33% correct, independent, 71% correct; modified ICS: home with help, 0% correct, independent, 74% correct). By deleting items with low reliability from the ICS and the GCS we achieved improved reliability and predictive validity. The improvement in predictive power, however, was inadequate to accurately predict functional outcome. Combining clinical scales with other demographic, physiological, functional, and radiographic data will be needed to achieve useful predictions of functional outcome.

TRAINING TALES IN FAMILY THERAPY: EXPLORING THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Educators frequently consider live supervision as the method of choice in facilitating and epistemological shift for family therapy graduate students. I this article, excerpts from and novel serve as and additional training tool to therapeutic interaction. Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet reveals epistemological concepts relevant to family therapy in its protrayal of the richness of multiple voices and a lack of certainty about predictable outcomes. Family therapy doctoral students studied a didactic module based upon passages for the Quarted; descriptive evaluation of this particular training experience suggests how literature can be useful in facilitating an epistemological shift that is often a challenge to family therapy graduate students and educators.

Using audioteleconferencing to link occupational therapy graduate students in the United States and Canada.

Lack of access to graduate education in the United States and Canada is a frustration for many occupational therapists who wish to further their careers. One way to overcome lack of access is to use technology to bridge the distances. The occupational therapy schools at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, have collaborated for several years to provide graduate occupational therapy courses via audioteleconferencing. A general overview of the progress made in the project, as well as its design and unique features, is discussed. The major recommendation is that more occupational therapy schools could use distance education to collaborate when resources are few and needs are great. Such efforts benefit both faculty members and students.

Personal therapy for family therapy graduate students

This study explores students' attitudes about personal therapy as a component of training and assesses the effects of providing a list of community therapist who were willing to see family therapy graduate students at a reduced fee on students' behaviors. Students' personal therapy experiences and attitudes about faculty involvement in their personal lives were also investigated. Most students believe that student therapists should have personal therapy sometime during their training, and the majority of students had al-ready been in therapy. Individual issues and relationship problems were the most frequently cited reasons for starting personal therapy.

A Developmental Program in the Black Community

In the last ten years there has been a preponderance of programs intended to change the life styles of the so-called disadvantaged groups. Most of these programs have been federally funded and as such should have had national impact. Although several such projects have demonstrated relative success, many have been victims of misconceptions regarding procedures for alleviating the effects of racial prejudice. This article attempts to show the difference between what was planned and what happened in a program that ended successfully. Fortunately, modifications in the plan were implemented early enough to insure some success. In a Southern city a federally funded summer program was established to develop a sense of awareness, organization and application to the environment for seventhand eighth-grade black students from a lower income neighborhood. Staff included a school-community coordinator (white minister), and three occupational therapy graduate students (two black men and one white woman) who conducted the program. A consultant with occupational therapy credentials was involved in planning and implementation of the project. Goals and progression as articulated and implemented, utilizing an occupational therapy frame of reference, were: