Introduction: Occupational therapy students are taught how to conduct routine-based interviews to identify families’ concerns about the occupational engagement of their children, and then use this information to formulate responsive intervention outcomes. To support this theoretical exposure, students must be given opportunities to develop this skill in the classroom before applying it with families in practice.
Objectives: In this poster we will describe the design and implementation of an innovative teaching method into the undergraduate occupational therapy curricula of two universities in South Africa.
Method: The educators developed the personas for two chatbots which were adopted for use in both settings (XXX and XXX). Occupational therapy educators familiar with the practice contexts provided feedback to ensure that the personas were appropriately representative of caregivers in their contexts. They then worked with an instructional designer to train chatbots with different personas to promote student skill competence and confidence in routine-based interviews. Students were asked to rate their skills in conducting routine-based interviews on a questionnaire before and after the training and chatbot interactions. A further assessment of their skill was undertaken via a peer review process.
Conclusion: Given the challenges of learning practical skills in complex and unpredictable practice learning environments, classroom teaching must optimised to better prepare students for practice. This poster presents a innovative teaching method which can meet this need.