Assessment of fieldwork practice

Abstract

Assessment of fi eldwork is common to all occupational therapy courses. This form of competency based assessment has been researched across many healthcare professions. Work on the appraisal of fi eldwork assessments used by occupational therapy courses in the United Kingdom is just beginning. At the present time there appears a gap in information concerning the experience of fi eldwork assessment from the student's perspective. This article seeks to address this by reporting the fi ndings of a qualitative study of third year undergraduate occupational therapy students at University College Northampton to investigate their experience of being assessed on fi eldwork. The results showed that students expressed high levels of acceptance with the primary fi eldwork assessment, the fi eldwork profi le. However they displayed some concern about its reliability. A major infl uence on the assessment process was seen to be the fi eldwork educator and the supervisory relationship. In general older students appeared to have a greater degree of control over both the assessment process and the supervisory relationship. As a result of the study it would appear that a national exploration of the assessments used to assess competence of occupational therapy graduates could be benefi cial to the profession.

Mechanisms that support the assessment of interpersonal skills

“…The Interpersonal Skills Profile Tool (ISP) was developed by an occupational therapy lecturer in the UK (Knight, 2003;1998). The ISP attempts to explicitly assess students on interpersonal and professional aspects of their observed performance, using criterion referencing, rather than norm referencing based on the mentor's personal experiences (van Mook et al, 2009).…”

Should you encourage students to assess themselves in practice learning? A guided self-efficacy approach to practice learning assessment

“…Practice teachers have a dual responsibility for making an assessment and a pass or fail recommendation to universities, as well as teaching and supporting students in their learning. At times, this has been seen as uncomfortable and producing a potential confl ict of interests (Knight, 2003). It should not be seen in this way, however, as it is part of the learning and teaching process and perhaps refl ects some of the changes required in practice teaching in social work (Watkins and Edwards, 2002).…”

“…The student perspective in assessment has been little considered but is central to the experience. Knight (2003) reports on a qualitative study of fi nal year undergraduate students from an occupational therapy background, investigating their experiences of being assessed. She found high levels of acceptance with the primary assessment but some concern about its reliability, which demanded clear explanation of the assessment criteria for practice learning experiences and an indication of ways in which the criteria might be met.…”