Guest editorial

I am delighted to act as guest editor for this edition of the Bulletin, focussing on occupational therapy education and more specifically how we bridge practice and theory in our profession. The idea for this theme arose during the WFOT Congress in 2014 in Yokohama: I know that I was not alone in noting the wide range of high quality presentations on occupational therapy education. What I observed then, and again in the contents of this Bulletin is the wealth of diversity within OT education.

As a profession, we have long prided ourselves with the ‘art and science’ of occupational therapy, as articulated so many times in our literature (e.g. Rogers, 1983; Wood, 1995). This art and science enables us to value qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research to underpin our evidence base. Occupational therapy curricula include human and biological sciences as well as humanities and social sciences alongside our profession-specific theory and practice. This diversity, while probably not unique in health and social care, adds greatly to the richness of our foundations and enables entry-level occupational therapy education to be a varied, rich and often demanding experience.

The breadth and depth of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required for novice practitioners certainly poses challenges for educators, not least in how to fit all that is perceived to be essential in occupational therapy education into one coherent occupation-based programme. Yet, I argue that it is precisely because of these challenges and the need to integrate this content that has enabled innovation and creativity in the manner in which curricula and programmes of study are formulated. There is evidence of this creativity and variety of education approaches within this issue of the Bulletin, such as Wimpenny's article on how students from different countries have collaborated to prepare for that ‘uncertain world’ of practice; there are a range of articles and case studies about fieldwork education as well as the use of technology, and how integrated learning and authentic learning experiences are used to promote competence.

Occupational therapy education is growing: as highlighted in the president's comments, the numbers of occupational therapists being educated are increasing and education programmes are being established in countries where the profession is relatively new. Guided by the WFOT Minimum Standards, which were created in recognition of changes both within and external to the profession (Hocking & Ness, 2004), occupational therapy education must equip a workforce who can identify and address the occupational needs of the communities in which they work. In some countries and regions, challenges in education relate to establishing new programmes, in other regions debates reign about how occupation-centred our education needs to be, how we can respond to changing health-care and education systems or the debate about whether entry qualifications should move towards masters or doctorates. We have much to discuss with each other and debate. We also have much to share with educators in allied and related fields.

What seems abundantly clear is that a forum for communicating education practice and sharing our evidence base for education in occupational therapy is required. Calls for more evidence-based education approaches that go beyond student satisfaction scores have been articulated before (e.g. Hooper, King, Wood, Billics, & Gupta, 2013). The challenge remains that there is, as yet, no specific outlet or primary journal for occupational therapy education. I hope that that this situation can be rectified soon and that we can have a Journal of Occupational Therapy Education in the not too distant future. In the meantime, this Bulletin will hopefully provide a starting point for discussion as well as a showcase of specific examples of how theory and practice are bridged.