Resilience, professionalism, and reflective thinking: The three-legged stool of health professional and teacher education students’ fieldwork practice / Resilienz, Professionalität und reflektierendes Denken: die drei Säulen für das Praktikum von Studierenden der Gesundheitsberufe und der Lehrerbildung
Published Online: Nov 25, 2021
Page range: 98 - 111
Received: Apr 13, 2021
Accepted: Oct 13, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijhp-2021-0009
Keywords
© 2021 Clifford J. Connell et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Background
Fieldwork is a core element of health professional and education student training that is often a professional registration and practice requirement. There are many personal, social, and professional factors that impact on students’ fieldwork performance. The impact of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking on fieldwork performance is not well described in the literature.
Aim
To examine the relationship between health professional and teacher education university students’ perceptions of professionalism, resilience, reflective thinking and their links to fieldwork performance.
Methods
Ten focus group interviews were conducted with university undergraduate or master's students across four disciplines: occupational therapy (
Results
Six themes were identified. Fieldwork placement created real-world opportunities for developing technical and nontechnical skills, professional acclimatization, psychosocial traits, and behaviors for coping with the transition from student to proto-professional. However, these outcomes had consequences related to bridging the gap between university course theory and the reality of the workplace, adapting to cultural differences and local practice as well as seeking their own resources, supports, and learning.
Conclusion
Despite the personal, professional, and practical challenges of fieldwork, students independently establish mental models of professionalism, resilience, and reflective thinking, which support their fieldwork performance. However, developing these mental models should be underpinned by theory, and coordinated university and industry supports should be provided to augment this process.