Background: The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic gave rise to unparalleled circumstances that brought about unprecedented changes in the lives of individuals globally. The South African government enforced a nationwide lockdown that resulted in the temporary closure of non-essential sectors, which included the suspension of all educational activities. In response to the lockdown, higher education institutions (HEIs) were forced to adopt new methods of teaching. Conventional face-to-face (f2f) teaching and clinical rotations were therefore converted to online emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL).
Aim: This study aimed to identify the constructive elements of the two online clinical rotations that took place during 2020 as experienced by Stellenbosch University’s third- and fourth-year occupational therapy students and clinical educators, which fostered practical learning.
Methods: A collective case study was employed using a purposive total population sampling technique. Student participants’ reflections and clinical educators’ meeting transcriptions were used to obtain the perspectives of the learning that took place from the 63 research participants. Content analysis, using an inductive analysis method, was utilised.
Findings: The constructive elements that contributed to the learning for the students were reflected in the following themes: (1) composites of the learning, (2) supervision and (3) active learning.
Conclusion: Elements of the online clinical rotation contributed to students’ learning experience. These constructive elements have the potential to contribute to and facilitate a hybrid learning method that will allow for optimal clinical training to occur in the future.
Copyright © Dawn V. Ernstzen, Lee-Ann J. Jacobs-Nzuzi Khuabi and Faeza Bardien (eds.).