Date Presented 04/03/2025
Emotional competence can be cultivated to best prepare students and future practitioners to be authentic OTs. This session provides recommendations for academic programs, fieldwork educators, and students to facilitate growth.
Primary Author and Speaker: Kathleen Hughes Butcher
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between emotional competence (EC) and level II fieldwork success from the perspective of the fieldwork educator (FWE). Emotional competence encompasses multiple skills and attributes that are essential to success of occupational therapy level II fieldwork. Learning more about the relationship between emotional competence and level II fieldwork success holds implications for occupational therapy students, academic programs, fieldwork educators and recipients of occupational therapy services.
DESIGN: This qualitative study, using a phenomenological approach, explored the relationship between emotional competence and level II fieldwork success from the perspective of fieldwork educators.
METHOD: Purposeful sampling was utilized to recruit the three occupational therapists who serve as fieldwork educators to fieldwork students. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews then analyzed using thematic analysis.
RESULTS: Thematic analysis yielding two themes, one, an overarching theme, Emotional Competence: The Crux of Occupational Therapy, which confirmed the centrality of emotional competence to occupational therapy. The second theme, Critical Influential Factors Support or Impede Success, illustrates the specific behaviors and attributes of emotional competence, essential to level II fieldwork success, as identified by the participants. These behaviors and attributes are represented by seven subthemes that will be discussed.
IMPACT STATEMENT: The results illustrate importance of the cultivating emotional competence throughout the academic and clinical careers of students. Recommendations for emotional competence development, supporting level II success, are discussed. These results can be utilized to facilitate student preparedness, ultimately having a direct impact on preserving a essential and distinct facet of the profession (Hughes-Butcher, 2023).
References
Hughes-Butcher, K. (2023). Perspectives of fieldwork educators: The relationship between emotional competence and occupational therapy level II fieldwork success [Doctor of Education Program, University of New England] Dissertations. 6. https://dune.une.edu/edu_diss/6
Andonian, L. (2017). Emotional intelligence: An opportunity for occupational therapy. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, 33(4), 299–307, https://doi:10.1080/0164212X.2017.1328649
Mikolajczak, M. (2009). Going beyond the ability-trait debate: The three-level model of emotional intelligence and unifying view: The three-level model of EI. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 41(5), 1107–1117.
Dugué, M., Sirost, O., & Dosseville, F. (2021). A literature review of emotional intelligence and nursing education. Nurse Education in Practice, 54, 103124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103124
