Coventry University: E-Journals
Not a member yet
699 research outputs found
Sort by
Exploring the Role of Mindfulness as a Potential Self-Management Strategy for Physiotherapy Students when on Clinical Placement
Get PDFHealthcare programmes tend to neglect exploring self-care strategies for students whilst they are on their clinical placements. There is evidence that students experience placements as challenging because of the long hours, and endeavouring to meet the needs of many patients across diverse challenging settings. Mindfulness is a potential self-management strategy to enable students to manage the challenges and resultant stress during these times, and to work optimally within their competences. This study explores the role of mindfulness in attempting to meet these challenges. Purposive sampling was used to recruit nineteen MSc pre-registration physiotherapy students who received a two-hour mindfulness intervention prior to commencing their placement, and were encouraged to practice mindfulness for 30 minutes three times a week with a CD whilst on placement or in their own time. Additionally, they were asked to practice for 10-15 minutes ‘mindfulness of the breath’ during this period. A qualitative approach that incorporated thematic analysis was used to analyse the audio-recorded and transcribed pre- and post-placement focus groups. Perceived benefits from practising mindfulness were: a lessening of intrinsic stress, and an ability to cope with extrinsic stress with increased clarity and objectivity. The CD proved burdensome amongst the students, largely owing to time constraints, but this did not deter their desire to implement mindfulness during this time, and they devised alternative and individual modes of practicing this mind-body-based approach. This study lends evidence to support inclusion of mindfulness into the physiotherapy curriculum as a self-management strategy to empower students to cope with clinical placement associated stress
Occupational Therapy Enhanced Practice Education Approach: Student Perspectives
Get PDFIt has been suggested that to provide occupational therapy students with the best opportunities to learn while on a placement, it is important that they enter a supportive and welcoming environment that fosters quality learning experiences. To achieve a quality practice education experience, the occupational therapy team at Barwon Health developed and implemented the Barwon Health Occupational Therapy Enhanced Practice Education Approach (BHOTEPEA). The aim of this research was to ascertain occupational therapy students’ perceptions of the impact of the implementation of three core components of the BHOTEPEA: the student orientation process, facilitated practicums and reflective practice sessions. The method utilised by this study was an on-line survey to collect quantitative and qualitative data from occupational therapy students who had undertaken placements at Barwon Health between December 2014 and December 2015. Thirty-six out of 125 occupational therapy students responded to the survey (response rate of 29.8%). Students indicated that the approach assisted them to feel welcomed and prepared for placement, develop their practice skills and abilities, and develop their reflective practice skills. In conclusion, it appears that the BHOTEPEA supports the key elements of a quality practice education experience for occupational therapy students identified in the literature, including a welcoming learning environment, detailed orientation, clear expectations and a graded program of learning experiences. The findings from this research suggest other placement sites may be able to enhance the quality of their student placement experiences by adopting the three core components of the BHOTEPEA
Expanding Learning Spaces for Second Language Writers: A Writing Partners Project Across Program Boundaries
Get PDFWriting Partners projects have been instituted as ways of providing student writers with audiences other than their classmates and instructors. These projects may take various forms: e.g. high school students are paired with students at another school or with college students, etc. This article outlines a new approach to Writing Partners projects that utilized trained peer review and pairing of students from two successive academic programs related to writing: the English for Academic Purposes Program and the Writing Program. This project was piloted at Deree – The American College of Greece in Spring 2014. The aim of the project was to investigate whether this practice would have an impact on the participants’ writing abilities and attitudes towards writing.The findings of the project suggest that extending a community of writers “beyond classroom walls” (Gillis 1994: 64) and across academic program boundaries, and utilizing trained peer review, may enhance students’ writing skills and positively affect their attitude towards writing. This has been shown through qualitative and quantitative analysis of the students’ revised writing and an examination of their written reflections. The article proposes that similar Writing Partners projects be implemented at different institutions to enhance student writers’ skills
Stakeholder Perspectives of an Approach to Healthcare Leadership Development through Use of a Multidimensional Leadership Development Conceptual Model
Get PDFLeadership is often the driver used to transform healthcare services. Healthcare leadership development is often situated around conceptual frameworks or leadership development models. The aim of the study reported here was to evaluate multistakeholder perspectives on leadership development when applying a Multidimensional Leadership Development Conceptual Model to post-graduate healthcare leadership programmes at a university in England. This exploratory qualitative study of healthcare leadership development comprised face-to-face interviews. Six interviews were undertaken with academics from a post-graduate leadership programme team, a family carer and service-user of health care services, and current United Kingdom students and former United Kingdom and international students who had undertaken the leadership development programme. Transcripts were thematically analysed. Three themes emerged: Expectations of the contemporary healthcare leader; Experiences of the Multidimensional Leadership Development Conceptual Model on leadership development; and Improvements to the model. We conclude that framing post-graduate leadership programmes around a conceptual model can aid identification of the key components required for effective leadership development. Evidence-informed recommendations are provided which seek to optimise healthcare leadership development using a leadership development conceptual model which (1) represents the values and beliefs of all stakeholders involved; (2) is reviewed annually to critically explore the internal and external evidence base for leadership development; gain stakeholder consensus of expectations of the healthcare leader; and provide the reality check to ensure a ‘fit for purpose’ programme; and (3) is constructively aligned to leadership programme curricula with sufficient flexibility to tailor an effective teaching and learning platform for preparing the individual leader, noting unique circumstances and contexts
Working in Partnership to Build Placement Capacity in a Competitive World
Get PDFA number of higher education institutions (HEIs) report continual issues with placement cancellations due to a lack of commitment at practitioner level. Whilst there is a professional requirement to contribute to student education, it has been difficult to enforce accountability on autonomous practitioners. The culture of sourcing and allocating placements is problematic. As occupational therapists who supported student education in the NHS and Social Care, we have now become responsible for organising placement education opportunities for a HEI. This has provided a privileged insight into the differing cultures, expectations, and issues inherent to this collaboration. Tasked with making placement provision an attractive and quality experience through collaborative working in a competitive world, a new way of working was found to be required. In this reflective paper, we consider an allocation model as a method of building placement capacity whilst challenging cultural norms. The model has been successfully implemented, and is now in its third year of implementation. This new placement capacity model has reduced the time spent sourcing and allocating placements. Additionally, the number of cancellations has become negligible whilst the choice of placements for the HEI has increased
Revision Processes in First Language and Foreign Language Writing: Differences and Similarities in the Success of Revision Processes
Get PDFWriting academic texts in one’s native language (L1) and – even more – in a foreign language (FL) places high cognitive demands on students. In order to cope with these demands, writers should learn to adapt their writing methods flexibly to their tasks, depending on the language and the genre they are writing in. Crucial aspects here are the methods of revising because the need for linguistic revision will be higher in the FL text than in the L1 text; at the same time, it should not be the main or only focus of the revision process. In order to analyse the differences in L1 and FL revision, a study was set up in which ten L1 German students wrote academic essays in German and in English. The production process was protocolled with the help of keylogging, so that the revising processes could be analysed. The results show that the participants revised similarly in both the L1 and the FL. They focussed on the same aspects (content, typing mistakes, and language errors that were not L1 related). At the same time, there are differences in finer grades. These differences in revision do not seem to be a conscious decision, however, but are rather the result of the higher cognitive demands in FL academic writing and the lower degree of language knowledge. Additionally, the analysis of the final FL texts showed that most of the errors that were not corrected were L1 induced. When one looks at the revisions, however, one sees that hardly any revisions were made in these aspects: the L1 influence went more or less unnoticed. For writing pedagogy, this means that one has to put a higher focus on revision strategies during teaching, in order to give students the tools to write successfully in L1 and in FL, and to motivate them in enhancing their papers
Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Interprofessional Supervision on Placement
Get PDFThis study aimed to explore perceptions and experiences of Occupational Therapy and Speech-Language Therapy students regarding interprofessional supervision during an interprofessional rural schools placement. Eight participants were recruited to participate in three semi-structured, one-to-one interviews conducted by phone before, during, and after the placement. The interviews were transcribed verbatim for subsequent thematic analysis. Our findings indicate that whilst participants valued the interprofessional peer supervision afforded by interprofessional placements, they entered interprofessional placements with misguided assumptions and expectations regarding interprofessional supervision from supervisors. This appeared to contribute to their largely negative perceptions of interprofessional supervision resulting in the devaluing of interprofessional supervision now and possibly in the future. This exploratory study presents a unique insight into the limitations of interprofessional supervision, and the critical need for interprofessional supervisor training and student preparation before placements. Follow-up research is required to expand on these findings so the limitations are addressed. This may enable interprofessional supervisors to provide better learning experiences, increasing students’ acceptance and appreciation of interprofessional supervision