In a changing society which elements and competencies is needed and demanded in the future OT education?

Theme: Occupational Therapy Education,: The Profession and discipline
Keywords: Educational Programs, Educational Methodologies, Relevance of Educational Programs in Occupational Therapy
Field: Occupational Therapist education
Presentation Type: Oral presentation, 20 min.
By: Bodil Winther Hansen. Lecturer. OT, MVO
Anne Hove, Lecturer, OT, MLP
Annette Randbøll Sørensen, , Lecturer, OT, MLP
The Occupationall Therapy Department, Copenhagen

In a changing society which elements and competencies is needed and demanded in the future OT education?
This project presents knowledge and guidelines about:
•How to plan a curriculum, in order to enable OT graduates to meet employers’ demands in a rapidly changing society
•The future OT profession.

After 12 years of practising Problem Based Learning (PBL), the Faculty of Occupational Therapy wanted to develop the quality of the OT education offered by Metropolitan University College, Copenhagen.
The object was to evaluate and develop the pedagogical practice, and to examine if the pedagogical concept prepares the students for the future in the best way possible.
To describe the level of education to be achieved in terms of competences and learning outcome, the study was inspired by the Tuning Process of educational structures in Europe, which is part of the Bologna process to integrate higher education in Europe.
The study is based on literature studies, quantitative and qualitative methods. All of these methods are suitable for uncovering competences demanded by practice – i.e. generic as well as and subject-specific competences.
Informants were sampled among OT clinical directors, members of the board at the Faculty of Occupational Therapy Copenhagen and former students. Qualitative analysis was conducted according to Kvale (1997), which involved meaning condensation and interpretation at three levels: self-understanding, common sense and the theoretical level.