Impacts of service learning on Irish healthcare students, educators, and communities

Immersion learning at an aphasia camp: Analysing student video reflections

PURPOSE

Aphasia camps provide a learning context where students can gain knowledge and skills for clinical practise and regarding the lived experience of individuals affected by aphasia. The aim was to examine student learning experiences at a rustic, residential aphasia camp and explore the potential utility of video reflections.

METHOD

Twenty-two student participants, who served as volunteer staff at an aphasia camp, reflected daily on their learning experiences. Manual, qualitative coding was used to characterise individual, verbal reflections conducted through video modality.

RESULT

Three overarching themes were identified: applied learning, service, and clinical experience. Categories within applied learning included increased application of content knowledge, an evolving perspective of living with aphasia, and collaborative learning. Within service, students identified a commitment to making a meaningful impact, interpersonal relationships, and meeting the challenge. The clinical experience theme included increased confidence/self-efficacy and inspirational/rewarding categories.

CONCLUSION

Aphasia camp is a unique learning environment where hands-on experiences influence students' knowledge, sense of civic responsibility, and developing clinical skills. Being immersed in a remote environment alongside individuals affected by aphasia fosters insights into the lived experience of aphasia and may enhance empathy. Video reflections appear to be a viable means of capturing authentic, organic, and emotional reflections.

Current Landscape of Teaching Diversity in Occupational Therapy Education: A Scoping Review

IMPORTANCE

Critical research in health professions education makes clear the role of educational institutions in perpetuating problematic discourses related to diversity, as well as their potential role in dismantling and rebuilding those discourses to reflect the realities of power relations that create systemic injustice.

OBJECTIVE

To provide a comprehensive overview of current pedagogical practices and educational paradigms used by occupational therapy educators to teach concepts of, and skills for, equity and diversity.

DATA SOURCES

Seven education and health care databases were searched for articles published between 2007 and 2018.

STUDY SELECTION AND DATA COLLECTION

Consensually developed criteria were refined until an agreement rate of >80% was achieved among the authors. Inclusion criteria focused on entry-level occupational therapy education across the world and explicitly examined approaches to teaching diversity. All articles meeting the criteria were kept for full-text review (N = 87).

FINDINGS

Diversity in professional occupational therapy education programs is taught within five main underlying educational paradigms and theories: competency-based (44%), social justice (29%), critical (11%), social accountability (10%), and constructivism (6%). Within these paradigms, 14 key pedagogical practices were applied, with community service learning (37%), international service learning (25%), and didactic or course-based practices (23%) making up the majority of pedagogical practices.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Although current occupational therapy research demonstrates a trend toward critical paradigms and practices, problematic cultural competency theories and uncritical international service learning practices continue to dominate occupational therapy education for diversity. Educators should implement pedagogies and approaches within critical educational paradigms.

WHAT THIS ARTICLE ADDS

This article highlights the importance to occupational therapy education of attending to coherence across educational ethics, paradigms, and learning outcomes in teaching for diversity and health equity.

Creating a Community Capacity Assessment to Identify Agency Outcomes Related to Occupational Therapy Student Community Partnerships

Service-learning experiences immerse students in authentic situations and build partnerships with community agencies to support the health of those we serve in practice. Most occupational therapy curriculum evaluations do not systematically capture community agency benefits. Through the use of qualitative interviews and Q Methodology, the Community Agency Capacity Questionnaire (CACQ) was developed to capture the agency experience in these partnerships. This paper describes the iterative analytic process that resulted in the CACQ with 29 statements covering 6 domains: programming, evaluation, partnership, staff, funding, and marketing. The CACQ offers a means to identify outcomes from the service-learning partners' perspective.

Training socially responsive health care graduates: is service learning an effective educational approach?

BACKGROUND

Health care educators strive to train graduates who are socially responsive and can act as "change agents" for communities they serve. Service learning (SL) is increasingly being used to teach the social aspects of health care and develop students' social responsiveness. However, the effectiveness of SL as an educational intervention has not been established.

AIM

To assess the evidence for the effectiveness of SL.

METHOD

Seven electronic databases were searched up to 2012 and included all articles on SL for pre-professional health care students. Hand searching was also conducted.

RESULTS

A total of 1485 articles were identified, 53 fulfilled the search and quality appraisal criteria and were reviewed across six domains of potential SL effects: (i) personal and interpersonal development; (ii) understanding and applying knowledge; (iii) engagement, curiosity and reflective practice; (iv) critical thinking; (v) perspective transformation and (vi) citizenship.

CONCLUSION

While SL experiences appear highly valued by educators and students the effectiveness of SL remains unclear. SL is different from other forms of experiential learning because it explicitly aims to establish reciprocity between all partners and increase students' social responsiveness. Impact studies based on the interpretative paradigm, aligned with the principles of social accountability and including all stakeholder perspectives are necessary.

Community-university partnerships in occupational therapy education: a preliminary exploration of practice in a European context

AIM

To explore community-university partnerships in occupational therapy education in Europe.

METHOD

Educators from Europe were invited to participate in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire designed for the study. Eleven completed questionnaires were included. Descriptive statistics were generated from quantitative data while qualitative data were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

RESULTS

The majority of participants reported that community-university partnerships were part of the third year of undergraduate occupational therapy studies. Partners were from a broad range of sectors. The activities undertaken were typically focused on specific target groups within the community. Three main themes emerged from the qualitative analysis (i) instigating community-university partnerships, (ii) processes of creating and sustaining partnerships and (iii) perceived outcomes of community-university partnerships.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study of community-university partnerships in Europe generating some useful findings. Clarification is needed regarding the use of the term community-university partnership. Educators are called upon to consider how partnerships are embedded into curricula and to address issues of sustainability.

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

Healthcare education should prepare rehabilitation professionals to collaborate with diverse communities. Community--university collaborations appear to offer opportunities to support students to develop competences for future community orientated practice. Key issues to be considered include choice of pedagogical approach, issues of reciprocity and sustainability.