Exploring Changes in Occupational Therapy Students' Approaches to Learning during Pre-Registration Education

Abstract

This article describes a longitudinal cohort study, which examined the preferred approaches to learning of pre-registration occupational therapy students (N = 55) as they progressed through the 3 years of an undergraduate BSc(Hons) programme. The students' orientations to learning were measured using the short Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) (Entwistle 1981) and the results were compared descriptively across repeat measures undertaken during each year of study. Inferential statistics were used to examine whether there were any statistically significant differences in preferred learning approaches throughout the 3 years of study. The results showed moderate changes in learning approaches, which were associated with more successful outcomes of learning. The evidence of the use of these deeper approaches to learning was accompanied by statistically significant decreases in the less desirable, superficial approaches, with reductions in the mean scores between year one and year three for Operation Learning (p < 0.005) and Learning Pathologies (p < 0.05). The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to learning and teaching and assessment methods in undergraduate health professional education. Students may be encouraged to become more independent and to develop deeper approaches to learning by reducing formal contact time and developing assessment strategies that emphasise the exploration and application of knowledge.

Approaches to study across four year-levels of undergraduate occupational therapy students: Similar or different?

“…Fourth-year students scored significantly lower on the deep and strategic approaches to study compared to the first-, second-and third-year cohorts. It is not entirely surprising that fourth-year students did not score higher on the deep approach and its subscales, as previous studies found that the deep approach to study does not improve significantly over the occupational therapy and healthcare course (Chapman et al, 2006;Chung et al, 2015;Reid et al, 2005Reid et al, , 2012Samarakoon et al, 2013). The significantly lower scores on the deep and strategic study approaches among the fourth-year students when compared with students from the other three year-level groups lend support to the conclusions drawn by Richardson (2010) and Lawson (2014) that approaches to study differ among students across different enrolment year-levels in the same occupational therapy school.…”

“…Approaches to study can be specific to different academic disciplines and teaching contexts (Entwistle, 2007;Qureshi and Ullah, 2014), yet research into approaches to study with occupational therapy students is sparse. Chapman et al (2006) followed a group of British undergraduate occupational therapy students from their first year to third year and found that there was no significant change in their approaches to study over the duration of their enrolment. Richardson et al (2005) and Richardson (2010) compared undergraduate occupational therapy students across seven occupational therapy schools in Denmark and found no significant differences in approaches to study across different schools, but did find significant differences in approaches to study across different year-level cohorts in the same school (p < .001).…”

“…Approaches to study can be specific to different academic disciplines and teaching contexts (Entwistle, 2007; Qureshi and Ullah, 2014), yet research into approaches to study with occupational therapy students is sparse. Chapman et al. (2006) followed a group of British undergraduate occupational therapy students from their first year to third year and found that there was no significant change in their approaches to study over the duration of their enrolment.…”

Approaches to studying predict academic performance in undergraduate occupational therapy students: a cross-cultural study

“…Svidén [32] used a phenomenographic approach involving 36 occupational therapy students and found that deep and surface approaches to studying, as described by Entwistle and Ramsden [8], were applicable to the students’ descriptions of their learning process. Chapman, Watson and Adams [33] followed-up occupational therapy students from the United Kingdom (UK) ( n  = 138) and Bangladesh ( n  = 46) over a three year period of their study. They determined that the Bangladeshi students’ use of deep and surface approaches both exceeded the respective levels shown among the British students.…”

The relationship between approaches to study and academic performance among Australian undergraduate occupational therapy students

“…These studies and those included in the systematic review completed by Richardson et al (2012) did not specifically include occupational therapy students in their sample groups. As approaches to study can be related to learning contexts (such as the academic discipline and educational culture of an institution) (Chapman, Watson & Adams, 2006;Entwistle, 2007), findings from the above studies cannot be readily generalised to occupational therapy students. The relationship between approaches to study and AP among occupational therapy students remains unclear.…”