This article considers the experience of one Irish institution that has incorporated forms of reflective inquiry and practice into its initial teacher education programmes. Issues of coherence arise in relation to the larger context of education in Ireland. A serious disjunction emerges in the form of a clash between an official policy that urges substantial changes in curriculum and teaching and a national and school context that is resistant to educational change. Actual-as opposed to declared-policy and school practice are dominated by technical perspectives that are at odds with the significance of reflective inquiry in teacher education and with the resulting critical awareness of context and policy. Teacher education orientated towards professional development through forms of reflective inquiry is thereby rendered politically marginal. Appropriate responses to this dilemma are proposed: namely, that teacher education maintains a long-term perspective on its duty to enable teachers to respond professionally to the interaction of schools and reform efforts and, secondly, that it undertakes a prophetic role as critical friend to an education system resistant to change.

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The basicscience courses in occupational therapy programs, tbougb challenging, must be mastered ifstudents are to have the necessaryfoundation for success in theoretical and skills courses. This studywasdesigned to determine the relative contribution of several types of admissionsdata in predicting the success ofjunior students in tbefirst term of a human anatomy and physiology course. Overall GPA, science GPA, science credits, scores on the Otis-Lennon Mental Abilities Test and Nelson-Denny Reading Test, and type ofschool attended were significantlycorrelated with tbegrades achieved in the course (46% ofthe total variance in grades on a multipleregression analysis). Overall GPA and typeofschool attended were tbebestpredictors ofgrades (37% ofthe variance). This important predictive information can aid in identifying students who require additional academic development.

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