Introduction: Past studies that have investigated approaches to study adopted by undergraduate students suggest that university learners enrolled in different year-levels in the same academic course may take up different approaches to study. No research to date has investigated how approaches to learning may differ among undergraduate occupational therapy students enrolled in their first, second, third or fourth year of tertiary level study. The aim of the current study was to examine the similarities and differences in approaches to study among four year-levels of occupational therapy students at one Australian university. Method: First-, second-, third-and fourth-year undergraduate occupational therapy students (N ¼ 376; 92.8% response rate) completed the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students. A one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD were conducted to identify differences in approaches to study across the four year-level cohorts of students. Results: Fourth-year students differed significantly from first-, second-and third-year students on the mean scores of the deep and strategic approaches to study (F(3,372) ¼ 6.958, p ¼ .01 and F(3,372) ¼ 8.366, p ¼ .001 respectively) and on a number of the associated Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students subscales. There was no statistically significant difference across the four student cohorts on the mean score of the surface study approach. Conclusion: Findings from the current study highlighted the difficulties in facilitating a deep approach to study and the prevalence of a surface study approach among undergraduate occupational therapy students.

The findings support the use of top-down assessment methods from a variety of sources when evaluating children's motor abilities.

Culture and educational context do appear to impact the approaches to study adopted by undergraduate occupational therapy students. Academic and practice educators need to be cognizant of what approaches to studying the students they work with adopt.

A clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the GRASP when provided to patients within the first week is recommended.

Undergraduate occupational therapy students' approaches to study were predictive of their AP to a very limited degree. However, their AP was predicted by a number of demographic variables, including age, gender and year level of enrolment. Further study in this area is recommended.