Brief or New: Professional Development of Fieldwork Students: Occupational Adaptation, Clinical Reasoning, and Client-Centeredness

SUMMARY

Fieldwork provides occupational therapy students with professional development readiness for entry-level practice. Thus, describing the results of the fieldwork learning process in terms of observed professional behaviors is valuable. This pilot study was initiated as part of program evaluation with the goal to assess fieldwork students' performance maturation, clinical reasoning development, and client-centered behaviors as a result of this specific fieldwork experience. Nine occupational therapy students who completed Level II fieldwork at the Way Station, Inc., in Frederick, MD were videotaped administering the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) to a new client during the 2nd and 10th week of fieldwork to gather descriptions of changes in student professional behavior during the fieldwork experience. Observational analysis demonstrated that primitive and transitional behaviors decreased as mature behaviors increased, clinical reasoning shifted from primarily procedural to interactive and conditional, and client-centered behaviors developed. The findings enhance our understanding of the development of professional behaviors during fieldwork and provide indicants for future studies as well as a methodology for fieldwork supervision.

KEYWORDS:

• Fieldwork
• professional development
• occupational development
• clinical reasoning and client-centeredness