Enhancing professional identity of first-year occupational therapy students with the community-academia student tutoring program.

INTRODUCTION: Delayed professional identity of occupational therapists inhibits successful transition from student to professional. One of the objectives of development of the Community-Academia Student Tutoring (CAST) program is to encourage professional identity formation among first-year undergraduate occupational therapy students. It focuses on developing competence in communication and professional knowledge through a learning-community setting while interacting with individuals with disabilities, thus enhancing students' self-reflection abilities.

METHODS: Mixed-method design assessing change before and after participation among 193 students, in competence components essential for professional identity, and factors supporting its formation. Open-ended questions assessed the students' perceived contribution of the CAST program.

RESULTS: Significantly higher competence in knowledge about people with disabilities and relating to them; increased sense of belonging to a learning community and self-reflection abilities compared to before. Relationship with a person with disability and belonging to a learning community predicted 25.4% of the variance in perceptions of program contribution. Central in the students' experience were development of self-reflection abilities and interpersonal relationship skills, and learning occupational-therapy concepts through meeting people with disabilities.

CONCLUSIONS: First-hand relationships with people with disability and self-reflection in a structured learning-community setting, may help develop first-year students' communication skills and their professional identity as occupational therapists.