Research Articles (Occupational Therapy)
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Item Open Access Cultural competence among occupational therapy students at the University of the Free State, South Africa(University of the Free State, 2012) Janse van Rensburg, Elize; Van der Merwe, Tania; Nel, MarietteEnglish: The study investigates occupational therapy students’ perceptions about cultural competence and assessed their levels of competence to determine whether the undergraduate occupational therapy curriculum at the University of the Free State sufficiently equips students to become culturally competent professionals. A descriptive study was undertaken, using a non-standardised questionnaire. Students did not feel sufficiently equipped regarding cultural competence, and their levels of competence ranged between cultural incapacity and pre-competence. The results support students’ perceptions that the current occupational therapy curriculum at the University of the Free State does not sufficiently equip them to become culturally competent.Item Open Access The value of small-scale student projects in undergraduate research training(University of the Free State, 2010) Du Toit, Sanet; Wilkinson, AnnetteEnglish: This article reports on the undertaking of small-scale projects for final-year Occupational Therapy (OT) students training at the University of the Free State. An Action Learning Action Research (ALAR) approach was used to investigate the impact of such projects in a clinical setting. A tree analogy is used to describe the student projects, providing the body of the investigation as a whole, and sharing the experience gained in determining the constituents of the “fertile soil” and conditions for “optimum growth”. The impact of ALAR on practical experience is explained as a first step towards establishing a research culture among undergraduate students in OT as well as in similar training contexts.