A Grounded Theory of Practice Learning: What, and how, do students learn during practice placements and how can this learning be maximised?

With ever increasing pressures on healthcare services and a rising demand for placement opportunities to enable the education and registration of greater numbers of healthcare professionals, it is vital that students gain maximum learning during placement opportunities. A grounded theory approach was used to explore what was learned and how the learning occurred, during pre-registration occupational therapy programmes at one university in the UK’s West Midlands. This paper presents and discusses a theory of practice learning developed during research with pre-registration occupational therapy students. Eleven students and three practice educators participated in individual interviews following the first practice placement. Transcripts were analysed using constant comparison methods. Learning during the first placement was found to occur within four distinct categories: learning about oneself, learning about the profession, learning about practices, and learning about service users. The relationships between each of these categories was found to be interdependent and were further abstracted to develop a theory of practice learning that is characterised by the student’s availability for learning which was impacted on and by each of the four categories and can be enhanced by actions taken by the student, the education establishment, and the practice educator.