Occupational Therapy (Pre-registration) MSc

This 15 credit module delivered in semester 1 will introduce you to foundation sciences relevant to occupational therapy practice. This will include physiology, musculoskeletal anatomy and neuroanatomy. You will develop skills in the analysis of movement and activity, physiology and dysfunction, health and well-being to aid analysis of human occupation as part of the occupational therapy process. You will learn by attending key-note lectures, participating in small peer group seminars and practical teaching sessions and through self-directed study. You will also attend teaching sessions at the Human Anatomy Resource Centre (HARC), on campus, use online teaching platforms to access resources and participate in group teaching sessions . Service users will be involved with you as part of the learning process of this module.

This year 1 15 credit module will introduce you to occupational therapy professional practice. You will learn about what it means to be an occupational therapist, including the statutory and professional requirements and frameworks, the history and philosophy of the occupational therapy profession, in order to help you establish your professional identity. You will develop occupational therapy specific and generic knowledge and skills required of healthcare practitioners.

You will begin to generate and collate evidence of personal and professional development for inclusion within a personal continual professional development (CPD) e-portfolio. This will use the guidance provided within the RCOT career development framework (2017b) and the HCPC audit process.

Development of your professional identity and the required knowledge and skills will be achieved through a mixed style of learning and teaching strategies including keynote lectures, tutor facilitated seminars, on-line learning, participating in simulated learning activities, directed study and through undertaking a part-time placement of 12 weeks within an occupational therapy practice setting. This module also includes a personal development tutorial with the student’s allocated academic advisor.

Learning is assessed via three components. These include:-
1. A practical exam (OSPE)
2. Assessment of competencies within the practice placement
3. A critical written reflection

All three components of assessment must be passed. Components 1 & 3 must be passed at 50%. The placement element is pass/fail.

This year 1 15 credit module introduces you to the occupational therapy process. You will begin to develop clinical reasoning skills when working with people with a range of medical conditions, pathologies, social and cultural challenges. You will learn about occupational therapy models of practice, assessment strategies and develop skills in goal-setting.

The module involves keynote lectures, problem-based learning seminar groups where you will develop the required knowledge and skills, particularly in assessment and goal-setting in occupational therapy.

The module is assessed via submission of a 3,000 word written assessment. You will be provided with a choice of case studies, and are expected to develop a fully justified intervention plan, that shows clinical reasoning based on critical application of occupational therapy theory and critical analysis of evidence.

This year 1 15 credit module will introduce you to the underpinning social sciences relevant to occupational therapy practice. This will include psychology and sociology. You will develop an appreciation of society and well-being through the lens of the social sciences to aid your analysis of human occupation as part of the occupational therapy process. You will learn by attending key-note lectures, participating in small peer group seminars and fieldwork visits to local partner organisations and through self-directed and team work.
There are two assessments for the module. The first will be a written case profile for a person with lived experience of barriers to occupational participation. The second assessment will be a written Advocacy Access Audit for a person with occupational participation challenges within their local community.

You will attend teaching sessions and access resources both on campus and using online learning platforms. Local partner organisations and service users will work collaboratively with you to ensure that you develop a real-world perspective about the lives of people experiencing barriers to occupational participation and how society and public health practice can impact upon personal and community health and well-being and present this as a written case profile.You will then apply your knowledge of society, well-being and health as you undertake an assessment and critically analyse the accessibility of selected local community organisations, to produce an access audit.

This year 1 15 credit module will enable you to develop your clinical reasoning in order to make evidence-based, theoretically informed and professionally sound decisions. The academic learning builds on the occupational therapy process knowledge that you developed in OCCU471. Within this module you will further enhance your knowledge and skills in goal setting and intervention planning, and will learn about evaluating therapy outcomes.

You will have an opportunity to apply your learning and further develop your knowledge and skills through undertaking a practice placement in a typical occupational therapy practice environment. This is a full-time eight-week placement, in which you will be supervised by a nominated occupational therapy practice educator from within the placement setting.

The module involves keynote lectures, problem-based learning seminar groups, self-directed learning, and experiential learning within the eight-week practice placement. This variety of teaching and learning approaches will allow you to develop knowledge and skills central to occupational therapy with a particular focus on goal-setting and intervention planning and evaluation.

This module is assessed by means of:
1. A presentation related to a case study of the students choice.
2. An eight-week practice placement in an occupational therapy practice setting

This module will enable students to develop a research proposal for either a review of evidence, empirical project, clinical audit or service evaluation that will contribute to the development of evidence-based healthcare practice.

The module is aimed at graduates from a range of different disciplines/subjects who have a range of knowledge and experience of research methods at undergraduate level and are looking to develop their research knowledge and skills further and prepare for a masters level research project in their own area of clinical practice e.g. diagnostic radiography, mental health nursing, occupational therapy or physiotherapy. The likely range of research skills in students from different undergraduate programmes is recognised and this module is designed to raise them all to the appropriate master level in the subject.
At the end of this module, students will be able to understand and appropriately critique the elements of ‘the research journey’ from conception of research question, through development of a proposal. They will be both consumers and producers of research who will meet the requirements of the standard of proficiency, for each profession, as laid down by the Health and Care Professions Council and the requirements of each professional body for evidence based practice.
The proposal produced in this module will then be undertaken as the students’ dissertation in the final year of their pre-registration master programme.

The syllabus for this module is aligned to the Curriculum 2021 Hallmarks and demonstrates active learning and authentic assessment, designed to create students with greater confidence to understand research evidence, contribute to that evidence and be able to develop research in their own area of professional practice.

The module delivery will use a blended approach with face to face and online delivery supported with synchronous and asynchronous lectures, quizzes and profession specific interactive discussion boards and tutorials.

The assessments for this module will be a Research Proposal. The assessments can be tailored to focus on the student’s area of interest and area of speciality and will include consideration of the ethical requirements of the selected project.

This module comprises the dissertation for the preregistration healthcare programmers. It will enable students to undertake a piece of empirical research, a service evaluation/audit or a review of evidence in their chosen field of interest.

This year 2 15 credit module will introduce you to leadership theory and skills for use in occupational therapy practice. You will learn about service improvement and how services are delivered. You will have the opportunity to apply learning about quality assurance, entrepreneurship, change management and business planning and to design a proposal that enhances an occupational therapy service and to develop leadership skills to promote the required service changes.

This module will also provide you with an opportunity to integrate prior learning from a previous degree or prior work experience through engaging in a practice placement. This is a full-time placement of six-weeks duration undertaken in a non-traditional environment. Within Occupational Therapy this is known as a contemporary placement. This practice placement (PP3), could take place in for example, a third sector charity, public sector employer such as the Fire and Rescue Service or with a private employer situated within occupational health services. This is an opportunity for you to use your knowledge and skills in an environment that does not have an established occupational therapy service but there is a potential role for occupational therapy. This placement will provide you with the opportunity to develop identity, self confidence and strengthen your emerging occupational therapy professional identify, to raise and promote the profile of the profession and become politically and socially aware. You will engage in preparatory, clinical skills teaching sessions prior to commencing the practice placement.

This module will incorporate a mixed style of learning and teaching strategies including keynote lectures, tutor facilitated seminars, tutorials, and opportunities for developing skills through experiential learning prior to and during practice placements. You are also expected to engage in self-directed learning.

This module is assessed by means of two components:-
1. Completion of a defended poster presentation, proposing leadership of a service development project based on an authentic practice scenario identified by the student
2. An assessed six week practice placement

This module provides opportunities for you to focus on an area of specialist interest and utilise your creativity to design an intervention to facilitate occupational participation for an identified population. You will have opportunities to establish and develop collaborative relationships with community organisations and service users whilst enhancing your awareness of health and well-being from a global, national and local perspective.
Through clearly articulating and defending your occupational intervention, you will develop a strong professional identity and increase your confidence to prepare you for future employment in traditional and role-emerging healthcare settings.
The assessment is designed to actively engage students and allow you to exercise your creative design skills and choice over the development of a specialist area of interest.

This year 2 15 credit module will focus on preparing you, the occupational therapy student, for being ready for employment in occupational therapy practice. Following critical evaluation of progress using the Career Development Framework (RCOT, 2017), in collaboration with a University tutor, you will develop a learning contract that addresses your selected individual learning outcomes to be achieved within this module.

You will generate, critically evaluate and reflect on knowledge and skill development and present appropriate evidence from a completed personal continual professional development (CPD) e-portfolio.

This module will incorporate a mixed style of learning and teaching strategies including tutor facilitated tutorials, synchronous seminars, self-directed study and opportunities for developing skills through experiential learning, prior to and during practice placement. You will undertake an 8 week elective Practice Placement (PP4) in a placement environment of your choice.

This module is assessed by means of two components:
1. A 2,000 written synthesis and reflection on the achievement of the negotiated learning outcomes
2. An eight week elective practice placement.

Both components of assessment must be passed. Component 1 must be passed at 50%.

The external examiner for this module is to be confirmed.