Students who completed a research-based OT or PT placement reported it was more client-facing than they feared and left them more confident with research. But most students and educators had never considered the option. The gap is awareness and accreditation confidence, not the quality of the experience.
Students who completed a research-based placement described the tasks as more varied and more client-facing than they had anticipated, and reported feeling more confident with research processes and better able to connect research skills to clinical care.
The main barriers to uptake were not the quality of the experience but a lack of awareness (students did not know the option existed and were surprised when allocated one) and accreditation uncertainty (educators, even those with positive placement experiences, questioned whether sufficient client contact would be offered to meet core competency standards).
Practitioners who hosted students in research settings described the preparation as a significant time investment but reported the placements produced useful research outputs, such as data entry that would otherwise not have been completed.
Single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four participants were randomized across two intervention arms and assessed at twelve weeks for the primary outcome…
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