Interpersonal Social Responsibility Effects on Students’ Professional Development: Longitudinal Study

PURPOSE: Occupational therapy (OT) programs should qualify students to develop professional identity based on the foundations of diversity tolerance, interpersonal relationships, and collaborative partnerships with clients, families, colleagues, and others (Maloney & Griffith, 2013; Taylor, Lee, Kielhofner, & Ketkar, 2009). Service learning (SL), an established community placement educational strategy within OT educational programs, promotes the above goals (Bazyk, Glorioso, Gordon, & Percaciante, 2010). Yet, most SL projects face difficulties with unclear definition, learning outcomes, and methodology. The longitudinal study presented aims to explore a unique structured model, Interpersonal Social Responsibility Service Learning (ISR–SL), and its effect on students’ attitudes and professional identity throughout their course of study and as young graduates.

DESIGN: A qualitative research design was used to explore the perceptions and experiences of 183 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year OT students and graduates. All participants took part in ISR–SL during their 1st academic year. Data were gathered longitudinally from four different cohorts: at the end of the 1st year (N = 104), 2nd year (N = 41), and 3rd year (N = 22) and after graduation (N = 16).

METHOD: A reflective Expectation Questionnaire was developed for the current study. The questionnaire was based on open-ended questions aimed to explore ISR–SL experience and its interrelation with other components of OT studies as well as the development of professional identity, all from the students’ perspective. Data were analyzed using grounded theory analysis methods. All transcripts were reviewed and coded into themes using the constant comparative method to compare new data with existing categories (Creswell, 2012).

The first step included an open coding process of coding the data for its major categories of information. The second step included an axial coding process of identifying the core phenomenon to focus on (ISR–SL experience contribution, if any, from the students’ perspective) and creating categories around it. The final step included a selective coding process in which interrelationships of the categories were created, resulting in the final four themes and their related subthemes. Coding confidence was established via conversations among researchers throughout all data analysis processes.

RESULTS: Four major themes emerged from the data: (1) primary experience, (2) mentoring process, (3) professional identity, and (4) timing and nature of the experience. Subthemes are presented within each major theme. Findings suggest that a long-term relationship with a person with a disability and the exposure to his or her natural environment as 1st-year students enabled the students to develop a professional identity based on seeing the person as a whole and recognizing his or her centrality in the therapeutic relationship henceforth.

CONCLUSION: This study suggests ISR–SL as a future direction or next step for implementing SL in OT programs. Findings suggest that the core principles of ISR–SL (e.g., structured, goal-directed SL and an emphasis on person-to-person relationship building) fosters the development of OT students’ therapeutic personality as client-centered, collaborative therapists. Future research should include replication in various OT programs. In addition, the exploration of the perspectives of those who didn’t identify significant learning might contribute to broaden our understanding and further support students’ professional identity development processes.

IMPACT STATEMENT: The practical contribution of this research is in illustrating how a structured interpersonal social responsibility model enables OT students to develop collaborative attitudes and professional identity.

References

Bazyk, S., Glorioso, M., Gordon, R., Haines, J., & Percaciante, M. (2010). Service learning: The process of doing and becoming an occupational therapist. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 24, 171–187. https://doi.org/10.3109/07380571003681194

Creswell, J. U. (2012). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Maloney, S. M., & Griffith, K. (2013). Occupational therapy students’ development of therapeutic communication skills during a service-learning experience. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, 29, 10–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/0164212X.2013.760288

Taylor, R. R., Lee, S. W., Kielhofner, G., & Ketkar, M. (2009). Therapeutic use of self: A nationwide survey of practitioners’ attitudes and experiences. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 63, 198–207. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.63.2.198