In the olden days (10 years ago), professional staff were resourced and trusted to conduct market research which provided invaluable insights into the motivations and intentions of current and prospective students.
As the roles of professional staff have been reshaped and thinned at the Faculty level, academic staff have picked up far more of the load, which brings us to a publication by Deakin Occupational Therapy student Emma Kleindienst and Senior Lecturer Tamara Wanklyn looking at why students choose to study OT.
The team conducted an online survey with 134 OT students and follow up stakeholder interviews with 13 survey participants.
They found that 83% wanted to make a positive impact on the lives of others, and they mostly heard about the profession through family (31%) or friends (19%). While they were encouraged to enlist for the degree after hearing about positive experiences of others, ‘Narrow societal knowledge and perception of occupational therapy resulted in students gaining a limited understanding of the broad scope and role of the profession.”
This is an interesting insight – reminiscent of trades guilds in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, OT is essentially a bit of a closed shop supporting generational participation – however this is not because of barriers to entry, but rather lack of information about careers for the wider community. Imagine if the marketing team were able to expand on this with insights into rejectors (people who know about the course and could get in but choose other options), students who knew about the course but didn’t get the marks required, and demographic analysis of underserved populations? Unfettered by ethics approval and with expertise in drilling into market dynamics, marketing teams should be allowed to lead – and, indeed publish arguably – to address the knowledge deficit that the research team identify, noting, “There is limited information about why students decide to study occupational therapy as a course in Australian higher education.”
Meanwhile in a separate study examining OT student outcomes in the US, researchers looked at reasons behind declining pass rates and concerns over student retention.
The researchers attempted to map predictors of student success.
“In-program standardized scores consistently predicted academic … success,” the researchers wrote.
“In contrast, fieldwork performance was more strongly associated with non-cognitive psychosocial characteristics, such as resilience and emotional intelligence.
Grade point average alone was an inadequate predictor of success for OT students, and admissions criteria and student support systems should change to reflect broader assessments of learning strategies and non-cognitive attributes, they found.