Michelle Hannington¹
1 University of Cape Town

Research Question?
How do we ensure valid assessment practice for the profession of OT in the SA context? 

Thesis methodology
The thesis is adopting a four phase approach:
1) A scoping review on the assessment literature in OT education globally, to identify the current landscape and a critical discourse analysis to analyse influencing factors.
2) A narrative enquiry of assessment practice in SA, to identify and critique the factors that influence assessment practice locally, using a historical epistemology approach.
3) The development of a ‘Philosophy of Assessment' for the profession of OT in SA, using a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach. The third phase will focus on semi-structured interviews and focus groups to explore the current espoused assessment philosophies and to generate values, belief and attitudes underpinning a philosophy of assessment for OT education in SA. 
4) The final phase will continue the CGT, using nominal group techniques to generate a philosophy of assessment. 

3. Findings so far
The scoping review has been conducted and identified two broad influencing factors: contextual factors (influence of the global north) and professional factors (influence of medical education). These findings highlight power dynamics that have resulted in a ‘lift and shift’ phenomenon. 

4.) Questions for discussion
Due to the history of South Africa and the development of OT in SA, it is relevant to operate within a critical paradigm when engaging in the first two phases of the study, in order to critique and identify the factors influencing practice. However, for the CGT a constructivist paradigm is more appropriate, as the intention is to generate a philosophy, which is pluriversal in nature. The factors identified in the first two phases would be used as sensitising concepts in the second two phases. Is it possible to straddle two paradigms and what considerations should be made? 

References (maximum three) 

Tavares, W., Pearce, J., & Eva, K. (2022). Tracing Philosophical Shifts in Health Professions Assessment. In Applied Philosophy for Health Professions Education: A Journey Towards Mutual Understanding (pp. 67–84). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19- 1512-3_6 

St-Onge, C., Young, M., Eva, K. W., & Hodges, B. (2017). Validity: One word with a plurality of meanings. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 22(4), 853–867. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-016-9716-3 

Varpio, L. & MacLeod, A. (2020). Philosophy of Science Series: Harnessing the Multidisciplinary Edge Effect by Exploring Paradigms, Ontologies, Epistemologies, Axiologies, and Methodologies. Academic Medicine, 95 (5), 686-689. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000003142.