Student participation - a survey exploring elementary teachers’ perspectives

Introduction: School-based occupational therapists aim to enable students to participate to their full potential. Participation impacts students’ socio-emotional well-being and academic achievement. Aim: This study explored elementary teachers’ perspectives on student participation where the teachers are part of a professional learning community working in a hub model and investigated how their perspectives align with occupational therapy models. Method: A qualitative research design utilizing thematic analysis and a deductive approach was chosen. Elementary school teachers completed an anonymous survey with open-ended questions. Findings: Three themes impacting student participation were identified: students' intrinsic factors, environmental/extrinsic factors, and teachers' skills and abilities enabling participation. Conclusions: In line with the Person-Environment-Occupation-Performance model and the family-Participation-Related-Constructs, teachers identified intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting participation. While focusing on structured activities, the importance of unstructured activities and social participation were missing. Teachers identified the Professional-Learning-Community and hub-model as having a potential to enable participation but requiring good collaboration and trust between teachers. Significance: This study supports revisiting the Person-Environment-Occupation-Performance model to include Participation. Understanding teachers’ perspectives on participation promotes collaboration between occupational therapists and teachers. However, more research is needed to identify tools for measuring and evaluating students ‘occupational participation as well as gathering students’ perspectives.