Engaging persons with disabilities as community teachers for experiential learning in occupational therapy education.
Sok Mui Lim, Bhing Leet Tan, Hua Beng Lim and 1 others
PMID 30186085WHAT IT FOUND
Occupational therapy students who took part in a programme with community teachers reported less anxiety and changed assumptions about what people with disabilities could do.
Their attitudes improved after the programme, but there was no control group.
Key findings
01Students' attitudes improved significantly after the programme on all three MAS subscales, with average Affect scores falling from 42.94 to 32.08, Cognition from 26.12 to 21.41 and Behaviour from 23.78 to 20.65.
02In focus groups, all interviewed students said meeting community teachers changed their assumptions about what people with disabilities could do, including independence, full-time work, sports and overseas travel.
03A novel theme was personal growth, where students said observing community teachers made them more appreciative of their own circumstances.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
There was no control group, so the study cannot show that the programme caused the attitude change. The programme included orientation, a lecture, tutorials, three meet-ups, reflective logs, a summative report and presentations, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The participants were first-year occupational therapy students in one Singapore programme, so the result may not apply to later-year students, other countries or other health disciplines. Only 51 of 58 recruited students had complete data, and only 17 of those took part in focus groups. Community teachers were selected if they had a physical disability, regular community access, independent mobility, communication ability and had come to terms with disability, which may underrepresent people with cognitive impairments or more severe disability. Meeting one community teacher may give a narrow view of disability. The attitude measure was an adapted version of an existing scale, and its reliability varied by subscale.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the improved student attitude scores as evidence that this programme improves patient care. The study measured first-year occupational therapy students' attitudes before and after a teaching programme, and it had no control group.