Student education
Feature were unsure where to start . We needed a period of orientation and reading to familiarise ourselves with the topic and methods .
Our practice educator provided us with a list of key reading to undertake , which introduced the topic and research areas that would be addressed as the placement progressed ; this helped enormously with orientating us to the project .
After this , we were able to formulate a project goal to develop an occupational therapy intervention for supporting people with the transition from work to retirement .
Once we had the goal , we were able to work backwards to understand the steps needed to achieve it . Essentially , we were beginning with the end in mind – as our practice educator Dr Katrina Bannigan liked to tell us . And it actually worked .
The first factor in the success of a research placement is to understand the endpoint and being able to figure out how to get there .
Importance of planning
The team was split into pairs and each pair took on a specific section of the manual that they were ultimately responsible for completing . This meant we could plan our own section in our pairs then come together as a team to plan collectively .
Working alongside our peers allowed us to work through these new concepts together and gave us opportunities to be taught by and to teach one another , which we feel helped broaden our perspectives and enabled us to form more meaningful connections with each other .
We had developed our work plan within the first week of placement , which helped keep us focused and from getting lost in the literature . The plan evolved as we progressed ; some information we had first thought would be easy to access turned out not to be the case , which meant we had to reevaluate the plan .
Had we not had a clear end goal , these hiccups may well have meant the project would have been derailed .
Although this placement initially appeared daunting , being able to divide each section into manageable chunks allowed us , as a collective , to build on each area bit by bit as we learned and navigated the placement together . All these chunks were like building blocks , which once added together , over the weeks , resulted in a fully formed manual .
Trust the process
Before starting a new placement there is always that feeling of anxiety . As students this is normal ; we work our way through the course , knowing we are going to experience a different placement setting to the last .
In the case of the project placement , these feelings were present , but with the added knowledge that we would be the first students at our university to engage in such a placement . With this in mind , we really did not know what to expect on the first day .
Our practice educator however did have experience and from very early on made us aware of the process involved in carrying out a rapid review .
Although we had no idea how we would complete each part of the process at this stage , we were reassured by the knowledge that it had been done before , and if we kept learning , we would ultimately achieve our goal .
Learning by doing
This placement was a new and exciting undertaking , as none of us had been involved in a placement of this design before .
Dr Bannigan provided us with all the milestones we would be required to meet at the very beginning of the placement , therefore mapping them on to the placement learning structure so we were always aware of what was expected of us .
Providing us with these milestones enabled all the students involved to contain their anxiety and gave a sense of where to begin . In doing so , this helped increase our chances of success as we knew what we had to achieve by the end of each week .
Counter intuitively , more students is less work
The prospect of taking on a group of four or more students might seem like too much to a prospective practice educator , but counter intuitively , more , rather than less students makes the work more manageable .
We found that being in a group of six meant we came together to troubleshoot and bounce ideas off each other first and then if we could not figure it out , we would consult our practice educator .
This meant the daily morning meetings we had with our practice educator were more meaningful and more productive , as we were coming to them with fully formed ideas and focused questions .
One thing we feel is important , is that the group should be made up of an even number of students . This enabled us to be split into pairs and focus on specific sections and we don ’ t think it would have worked as well had there been an odd number .
Although we worked primarily as a team , being in pairs for each section worked well , as it
June 2022 OTnews 47