Abstract
Most professional behavior skills on the Fieldwork Performance Evaluation (FWPE) are not required components of entry-level OT education. Survey results from fieldwork educators explore the perceived academic preparation and importance of these skills, especially related to the diversity item.
Primary Author and Speaker: Jessi Clark
Contributing Authors: Casey Humphrey, Camille Skubik-Peplaski
Occupational therapy (OT) students are assessed on their professional behavior skills during Level II fieldwork (FW) by fieldwork educators (FWEs) as measured by the Fieldwork Performance Evaluation (FWPE). Most of these professional behavior skills are not required components of entry-level OT education, therefore academic preparation may be variable. The purpose of this project was to study the perspective of FWEs regarding the seven professional behavior items on the FWPE, primarily the relative importance of and academic preparation for these items. Participants included FWEs who completed the FWPE in the last 15 years. They completed an online survey that utilized a Likert scale and ranking method to collect data about the concepts of importance and academic preparation for the selected FWPE items. Fifty-fix participants completed the survey and demographics were similar to the United States OT/OTA workforce in most areas. Likert scale results indicate that FWEs ‘strongly agree’ that professional behavior items were important and ‘somewhat agree’ OT/OTA students were academically prepared with positive (but not statistically significant) correlations between the two concepts. Chi-square analyses confirmed the observed prioritization model and demonstrated a difference between the academic preparation and the difficulty rankings for the selected FWPE items. These findings are important to OT education as they provided guidance for OT/OTA educational programs to focus on four medium priority FWPE items, especially on the topic of ‘demonstrating respect for diversity’. In addition, these findings provide FWPE-specific details on the role of professionalism as it relates to Level II FW for both FWEs and OT/OTA students.
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