Barriers and Facilitators of a Sense of Belonging Among Occupational Therapy Students and Faculty: A Qualitative Study Using the Ecology of Human Performance Framework

A sense of belonging significantly influences both student engagement and faculty motivation. The objective of this study was to identify the barriers and facilitators of a sense of belonging among students and faculty of an occupational therapy department. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with fifty-one students and ten faculty recruited via non-random purposeful sampling. Data were collected through focus group discussions with students and semi-structured interviews with faculty. Both the focus group discussions and interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed by a professional transcription service. Inductive coding was used to identify initial themes, which were then deductively mapped to the context construct of the Ecology of Human Performance (EHP) Framework. Five main themes emerged from the focus group discussions with students: personal challenges and emotional stressors, triggers in the learning environment, peer support and cohort dynamics, faculty support and engagement, and cultural sensitivity and representation. Three main themes emerged from the faculty interviews: leadership and team cohesion, membership in social groups and committees, and the physical environment and proximity to students. Mapping these themes to the EHP framework revealed that the physical and social environments had the greatest impact on the sense of belonging for both students and faculty in this study. Increasing opportunities for social interactions and addressing physical barriers to student-faculty engagement can enhance the sense of belonging in occupational therapy educational settings

Exploring Integration of Occupational Therapy Services for the Refugee Population

As a result of many global conflicts and environmental instabilities, the refugee population is increasing in numbers throughout the world including North America. Refugees experience a distinct susceptibility to systemic barriers (Matlin, Depoux, Flahault, Saso, & Schütte 2018). As such, refugees suffer from a higher rate of physical and mental stress as a result of extreme suffering from the accumulative effects of physical and mental trauma, geological and cultural displacement (Hameed, S., Sadiq, A., & Din, A. U., 2019; Jamil et al., 2007). This unique and often neglected segment of the population can benefit from occupational therapy services to meet the demands within host communities. In order to serve this population, there is a need to understand their unique experiences so that their occupational needs may be addressed and met by the OT profession. This qualitative research approach utilizing a mixed-methods survey questionnaire was designed to capture current refugee integration service structure and to propose the role occupational therapy might serve to help this growing population.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesspring2021/1013/thumbnail.jp