Occupational Therapy education:

Dr Jo Watsonjdw@soton.ac.uk

COT Annual Conference, Brighton, 30th June 2011

An appalling paradox?

The Field of Higher Education:

Non-traditional students: – likely to be poorly prepared to study in HE (May & Bousted, 2004; Ozga

& Sukhnandan, 1998; Sambell & Hubbard, 2004; Yorke, 2001) – require and seek more guidance (Leathwood & O'Connell, 2003;

Thomas, 2002)

Widening or increasing participation? – expansion driven by 18-21y.o. school-leavers,

(Elliott, 2003) and those from more affluent families (Franklin, 2006)

– under-representation of those from lessprivileged social backgrounds (Reay et al, 2005)

– targeted groups unequally represented across the sector (BIS, 2010)

Pre-reg Occupational Therapy Education:

– Changing profile of OT student population– 67% of 2005 & 64% of 2008 intake mature (COT, 2007, 2010)– non-traditional academic backgrounds– Nation-wide attrition 15% in 2005 & 12% in 2008 (COT, 2007, 2010)

– Non-traditional OT students as successful as school-leavers(Howard & Jerosch-Herold, 2000; Howard & Watson, 1998; Shanahan, 2004)

BUT:

– More likely to consider leaving (Wheeler, 2001)– Feel courses geared towards school-leavers and

offer inadequate support (Graham & Babola, 1998)– Feel at times like they succeed in spite of

programmes (Ryan 2001)

OT - Helping people regain lost skills and live life to the full

Research Outline:

How do occupational therapy students from non-traditional academic backgrounds negotiate the learning requirements of the higher education environment?

Exploratory, instrumental case study approach (Stake 1995)

Focus: students with non-traditional academic backgrounds without prior experience of HE

3 year longitudinal study– 13 participants from a single cohort– Focus groups at entry– Individual reflective diaries– Semi-structured interviews towards the end of 1st & 3rd years of study– Demographic, personal and family background data– Documentary Analysis– Analysis of progression routes and exit awards of 4 cohorts

Progression Routes Study:

Binary logistic regressions:

– Pass at Level 4, 5 & 6 and ‘good’ (1st or 2:1) honours degree

– Gender

– Maturity at entry <21 years (school-leaver entrant) 21-25 years (young mature entrant) >25 years (older mature entrant)

– Entry qualifications Traditional & Non-traditional

– Socio-economic background Upper, middle and lower socio-economic groups

Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice:

Focuses on the dynamic interrelationship between social forces and individual dispositions that conceal and perpetuate conventional hierarchies of power and privilege (Grenfell, 2004)

Individual behaviour or practice is organised and produced neither entirely consciously nor entirely unconsciously.

Continuous learning about the usual patterns of social action and interaction within a given context enable individuals to develop an innate ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu, 1990)

Field: Bounded social spaces, spheres

or arenas of life which form distinct social worlds (Bourdieu and Waquant, 1992)

Encompass the ‘rules of the game’ and taken-for-granted practices

Define the range of possible and acceptable actions and behaviours (Grenfell, 2004)

Habitus: Durable, transposable dispositions

through which individuals perceive, judge and behave within, and think about the world (Bourdieu, 1990)

Structured by the social forces of the field that produce it while simultaneously structuring behaviours, perceptions and expectations (Wacquant, 1998)

Capital:

Any resource that holds symbolic value within a given field and therefore acts as a currency of that field

– Economic– Cultural– Social

Positions and trajectories within a givenfield vary with the volume and composition of individual portfoliosof capital (Wacquant, 1998)

Level of Analysis B (Std Error) Significance 95% Confidence Interval for Odds Ratio

Lower CI Odds Ratio Upper CI

Pass at Level 4

R2 = .09 (Cox & Snell), .18 (Nagelkerke). Model X2 (4) = 18.27, p = .001

Constant a -2.90 (0.44) .000 . .06 .

Gender (male) 1.77 (0.58) .002** 1.88 5.84 18.15

SEC (lower groups) 1.56 (0.54) .004** 1.66 4.78 13.77

Pass at Level 5

R2 = .09 (Cox & Snell), .17 (Nagelkerke). Model X2 (4) = 18.61, p = .001

Constant a -2.86 (0.43) .000 . 0.06 .

Gender (male) 1.65 (0.58) .004** 1.69 5.22 16.11

SEC (lower groups) 1.67 (0.53) .002** 1.88 5.32 15.06

Pass at Level 6

R2 = .11 (Cox & Snell), .19 (Nagelkerke). Model X2 (4) = 21.64, p < .001

Constant a -2.72 (0.41) .000 . 0.07 .

Gender (male) 1.72 (0.56) .002** 1.85 5.58 16.82

SEC (lower groups) 1.74 (0.51) .001*** 2.11 5.71 15.47

Good Degree

R2 = .08 (Cox & Snell), .12 (Nagelkerke). Model X2 (3) = 15.63, p = .001

Constant a -1.65 (0.28) .000 . 0.19 .

Gender (male) 1.30 (0.51) .011* 1.34 3.67 10.04

SEC (lower groups) 1.22 (0.41) .003** 1.53 3.39 7.50

a: constant or baseline model in which all predictor variables are omitted and it is assumed that all cases fall into the outcome category with the highest frequency (i.e. ‘yes’ in all levels of analysis);

* p < .05; ** p < .005; *** p = .001

Significant predictors of progression:

The odds of a student from the lower socio-economic groups failing to pass Level 4 are approaching five times higher than for a student from a higher socio-economic group.

The odds of a student from the lower socio-economic groups failing to pass Level 5 are more than five times higher than for a student from a higher socio-economic group.

The odds of a student from the lower socio-economic groups failing to pass Level 6 are over five and a half times higher than for a student from a higher socio-economic group.

The odds of a student from the lower socio-economic groups failing to secure a good honours degree are more than three times higher than for a student from a higher socio-economic group.

Capital that counts:

Feel for the game

Linguistic Capital

Academic Capital

Practice-oriented Capital

Social Capital

George: A ‘fish in water’ 33 year old mother of two

Previously a human resources officer then held various un/semi-skilled roles

11 year study gap

Human Biology A-Level

All they used to talk about was shopping and housework and my brain just felt like it was seeping out of my ears! So to finally come and be around people who had a bit more to say for themselves…[laughing]…other than that sort of thing, was brilliant. It’s like meeting a load of like-minded people.

1st Interview

And these people who say it wasn’t laid out correctly for them, and people who failed saying, oh, we weren’t told what to do…and I’m going, well, we were. It’s right there, you know!

1st Interview

…learning in groups, that’s definitely the key as well. We use a lot of study groups and we find so long as you’ve got like-minded people and they’re on the same wave length…

…I think you need to be a little ‘cold’ and strategic and find people with good understanding of subjects and people on similar wavelengths.

Reflective diary

…if I found out that there was an activity on somewhere that I thought was interesting, and not within the service, then I would go out and spend an afternoon. And quite often, later on in Placement, I would wind up referring someone to that and I generated a lot of ideas from different things that I’d seen.

2nd Interview

The place where myself and friends feel inspired and truly learn about OT is at Uni […]. All the wonderful lectures show and inspire me as to what I want to do with the role and what OT truly is.

Reflective diary

Betty: Growing and changing

34 year old mother of one

ex- beauty therapist and call centre manager

‘very working class’ [1st Interview]

9 year study gap

Access Certificate

… I’m not going to become somebody that I’m not. You know, I’m very…I want to remain quite grounded and I don’t want to lose myself along the way. This is going to help me grow.

…I don’t feel that I’m changing. I feel like I’m growing.

1st Interview

I remember a lot of note-taking. I remember a lot of…the thing that sticks in my mind is this, writing down words. I didn’t have a clue what they were, I just wrote them down…[laughing]…Not just medical words…just normal…language. Sometimes some of the words that we used, I was thinking, I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue what that means, so I’ll write that down and I’ll look it up when I get home…[laughs]

1st Interview

…on placement, I tend to do it with medical terms, which I think everybody does […] but in university, it just can be a word. One of the girls, she’s great for telling me words. We’ll sit and have a chat and I’ll go, “Whatever are you talking about?” [laughs] She’s great at explaining and just giving me a definition of words…”OK; and how would you use that in a sentence?” [laughs]

2nd Interview

I think you gather pieces of people really, and this is what I was saying about learning from all your experiences. Even if it was a negative experience it made me think “Well, that’s not how I think. That shouldn’t have been done.”

2nd Interview

…Because I’m away; I’m in a different town. I haven’t got people around me with a similar sort of experience or even who have gone through Uni themselves…

…when you are sort of struggling a little bit with your academic work, you think, “I could have done with that”, you know, just to sort of bounce ideas off.’

2nd Interview

I think you grow because you want to adapt to the society that you’re in as well […] I don’t want to just pass my degree or pass my exams, I want to do well in them. So I’ve had to sort of change my language, change my terminology and just fit in here at university

1st Interview

…it’s quite funny actually, because my husband looks at me sometimes and says “What was that you just said? I haven’t a clue what you’re on about there!” [laughs] And I’ll come out with a word and [my daughter] will just look at me and then just walk off [laughs]

1st Interview

It’s a huge pool, isn’t it, that you step into and you’re up to your neck rather than up to you knees […] I had to step on the side of the pool, delve into what I needed to get me though, rather than get in, immerse myself with it

2nd Interview

Academic Capital: the depth and level of disciplinary &

related knowledge,

skills associated with searching for, accessing and critically appraising, integrating and synthesising knowledge sources,

ability to justify and substantiate ideas applicable to professional practice,

accurate use of appropriate referencing and citation conventions,

style and delivery of oral presentations and written work, including the structure and tone of academic writing

Feel for the game

Linguistic CapitalAcademic Capital

Practice-oriented Capital Social Capital

Linguistic Capital: grammar

linguistic repertoire

forms of phraseology

tone and mode of written and verbal expression or expressive style

Relationship between linguistic and academic capitals

Influences accessibility of various learning activities and assessment tasks

Feel for the game

Linguistic CapitalAcademic Capital

Practice-oriented Capital Social Capital

Social Capital: access to collaborative study

groups

peer-review of draft submissions

haring of resources and skills

practical and emotional support

‘multiplier effect’ (Bourdieu 2006 p.110) facilitates acquisition of other capitals

Social capital derived from different social networks is unequal

Feel for the game

Linguistic CapitalAcademic Capital

Practice-oriented Capital Social Capital

Practice-oriented Capital: Related to but distinct from academic

capital

depth and breadth of knowledge appropriate to the practice context

suitably professional disposition & appearance,

enactment of core underpinning values and skills

– e.g. client-centredness, EBP, CPD, reflective practice, communication and team-working skills, personal and caseload management skills

proficient execution of the OT process – including assessment, prioritisation,

planning, implementation, evaluation and revision of interventions

Feel for the game

Linguistic CapitalAcademic Capital

Practice-oriented Capital Social Capital

Key points: ‘Rules of the game’ are largely implicit

Habitus can and does shift (variably) upon entry to unfamiliar fields

Congruence of habitus with the dominant culture of a field influences the portfolios of capital accrued and the ‘affinities, convergences and divergences (Grenfell 2007 p.138) experienced

That is – social background can have a marked impact on educational experiences in HE

Translatability of academic, linguistic, social and practice-oriented capitals to other professional programmes and more broadly across HE

Can we reduce the opacity of ‘the game’ & enable development of relevant captials to facilitate students’ achievement, ‘success’ and experiences?

Acknowledgements:

My genuine thanks are extended to:

All of the participants who made this research possible: to those who consented to their information contributing towards the progression routes study and particularly to those who generously give up their time over a three-year period and allowed me to explore and learn from their experiences in higher education.

My doctoral supervisors, Dr Alan Borthwick, Professor Melanie Nind and Professor Debra Humphris, for their guidance, support and encouragement.

Dr Peter Nicholls for his advice regarding the development of the database and data analysis for the progression routes study.

Key References:ARCHER, L. (2003) Social class and higher education. IN ARCHER, L., HUTCHINGS, M. & ROSS, A. (Eds.)

Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion. London, RoutledgeFalmer.

BOURDIEU, P. (1988) Homo academicus. Oxford, Polity Press.

BOURDIEU, P. (1990b) The logic of practice. Cambridge, Polity Press.

BOURDIEU, P. (2006) The forms of capital. IN LAUDER, H., BROWN, P., DILLABOUGH, J. & HALSEY, A. H. (Eds.) Education, globilization and social change. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

BOURDIEU, P. & WACQUANT, L. J. D. (1992) An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.

BURKE, P. J. (2005) Access and widening participation. British Journal of Sociology in Education, 26(4), 555-562.

ELLIOTT, G. (2003) From elitism to inclusion: Why are we widening participation in higher education? Journal of Access Policy and Practice, 1(1), 54-68.

FRANKLIN, M. (2006) Wider participation - narrow horizons: Status hierarchy and inequalities of access to higher education. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 8(1), 37-40.

GRENFELL, M. (2004) Pierre Bourdieu: Agent provocateur. London, Continuum.

GRENFELL, M. (2007b) Pierre Bourdieu: Education and training. London, Continuum International Publishing Group.

READ, B., ARCHER, L. & LEATHWOOD, C. (2003) Challenging cultures? Student conceptions of 'belonging' and 'isolation' in a post-1992 university. Studies in Higher Education, 28(3), 261-277.

REAY, D., BALL, S. & DAVID, M. (2002) It's taking me a long time but I'll get there in the end': Mature students on Access courses and higher education choices. British Educational Research Journal, 28(1), 5-19.

REAY, D., DAVID, M. E. & BALL, S. (2005) Degrees of choice: Social class, race and gender in higher education. Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books.

REAY, D., DAVIES, J., DAVID, M. & BALL, S. (2001) Choices of degree or degrees of choice? Class, 'race' and the higher education choice process. Sociology, 35(4), 855-874.

WACQUANT, L. (1998) Pierre Bourdieu. IN STONES, R. (Ed.) Key sociological thinkers. Basingstoke, Palgrave.