Introduction: Competency-based education (CBE) is essential for preparing healthcare students for the workplace. Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) have emerged as an effective mechanism to complement competency frameworks in the implementation of CBE. While many occupational therapy (OT) programmes use CBE as an educational framework, few have detailed the integration of EPAs into educational practices and assessments of OT students.
Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the implementation of five OT EPAs in clinical practice education (CPE) at the undergraduate OT programme at Singapore Institute of Technology.
Methods: Seven focus groups were conducted with 18 OT clinical educators and 12 OT students who had used EPAs in at least two clinical placements. Deductive content analysis was used to categorize the data into positives and negatives based on seven predefined domains from the 2018 OTTAWA Consensus framework for good assessment. The percentage of positive codes over total codes was calculated, and thematic analysis of all qualitative data was done.
Results: The evaluation revealed several key findings. EPAs were perceived to be coherent and aligned with the OT process. They were perceived favourably in acceptability, continuity, feasibility, and purpose domains but were deemed to add administrative burden for the programme and educators. A lack of understanding of the integration between EPAs and existing competency assessment led to less favourable perceptions in comprehensiveness and transparency domains.
Significance to the occupational therapy profession: The study describes the implementation, evaluation and strategies to improve the operationalisation of EPAs in one undergraduate OT programme. These insights are valuable for educators and institutions adopting or refining CBE in OT programmes.