Date Presented 04/05/19
OTA education teaches theory and application skills to encourage clinical reasoning in entry-level practitioners for dynamic and complex environments across life spans to promote meaningful lives. Through survey methodology, researchers used open- and close-ended questions to identify the frequency of instructional methods and if a relationship with the National Board of Certification of OT (NBCOT) pass rates could be identified.
Primary Author and Speaker: Marlene Vogt
Contributing Authors: Vanessa Jewell, Amy Maxeiner
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify and determine relationships with instructional methods on students’ ability to critically think/reason from various learning tools (videos, case studies, and simulations) other than traditional classroom (lecture) instruction towards successful completion of the NBCOT certification exam.
BACKGROUND: The number of Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) programs, in the U.S., have increased significantly in the past ten years from 128 accredited programs to 217 accredited programs (personal communications, N. Harvison, 2018). In medical based professions, such as occupational therapy, critical thinking/reasoning is a common topic for discussion and required of graduating students’ (Rowles, Morgan, Burns, & Merchant, 2013). The use of lecture and the use of PowerPoint presentations is common for traditional based instructional methods. According to Hawks (2014), faculty and students are creatively using other forms of instruction, which appear to increase competencies for communication, teamwork and clinical reasoning skills.
DESIGN AND METHOD: This study, using a descriptive non-experimental survey, investigated the relationship between instructional methods used in OTA programs and successful NBCOT certification exam scores. The survey design allowed both open-ended and closed-ended responses to be collected to encourage written responses to each of the research questions in the study (DePoy & Gitlin, 2016).
PARTICIPANTS: This research study used a nonprobability method of voluntary response samples for the survey. Inclusion criteria for the study were defined as OTA program directors from fully Accreditation Council of Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) accredited programs, including those on probation, within the United States with passing rates from NBCOT for 2014-2016 data collection points. Exclusion criteria included programs currently in candidacy, applicant status, or less than two graduating cohorts, due to the probability and inability of having passing cohort graduate information from NBCOT. Thirty-five out of 152 OTA program directors completed the open and closed questions of the survey.
ANALYSIS: Data was analyzed using Spearman ranked correlation coefficient, a nonparametric analog rating (Portney & Watkins, 2015) with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Pallant, 2018) software. Using descriptive analysis, lower ratings were assigned to the smallest value, and higher ratings were assigned to higher values (Portney & Watkins, 2015). The data collected summarized the measurement and description (Portney & Watkins, 2015) of instructional methods used in OTA educational program populations. The combination of using open and closed-ended data will increase the understanding of instructional methods and relationships to NBCOT pass rates for OTA programs.
RESULTS: Based on the findings from the study, the instructional method of traditional instructional based methods using lecture, demonstrated a statistical significance (.033) with a low correlation (.318) (Kielhofner, 2006), to the general OTA educational population. In this survey, simulation based instruction does not demonstrate a statistical significance as the scores relate to NBCOT pass rates, nor does the concept of collaborative learning. Each of the collaborative instructional methods reviewed demonstrated a negative correlation with a relationship to NBCOT pass rates and OTA program.
References
Hawks, S. (2014). The flipped classroom: Now or never? American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. 82(4). 264-269. Retrieved from http://www.aana.com/newsandjournal/20102019/08edunews14.pdf
Portney, L. & Watkins, M. (2015). Foundations of clinical research: Applications to practice (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: FA DAVIS.
Rowels, J., Morgan, C., Burns, S., & Merchant, C. (2013). Faculty perceptions of critical thinking at a health sciences university. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13(4), 21-35. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1017052.pdf
