The Arkansas State University Occupational Therapy Doctoral program is highly competitive. We admit no more than 30 students per year for a three year matriculation sequence.

Applicants will complete all documents and submit them to the OTD Chair for review by the Admissions Committee. Application to the Graduate School and acceptance is required prior to OTD program admission.  All application materials must be sent to: 

Dr. Christine Wright, Department Chair and OTD Program Director
Arkansas State University-Jonesboro
College of Nursing and Health Professions
Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program
PO Box 910
State University, AR 72467

To be considered as an applicant, all applications must be completed and submitted by:  February 1st.

Students will be notified by both an emailed letter and paper letter of their status by:  March 31.

Applicants not admitted during the current admission period are eligible to reapply in the next review period.

In order to be eligible for application to the Occupational Therapy Doctorate program, the following requirements must be met:

• Admission to the Graduate School at Arkansas State University - Jonesboro 
• Earned a Baccalaureate degree from an accredited University or College
• Official transcripts from ALL post-high school institutions
• Completed program prerequisites with a minimum of  a “B” grade on all courses 
• Earned prerequisite and cumulative GPA's of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale for all college work
• Meet English proficiency requirements, if foreign born
• Three pre-professional recommendations (see admission packet for forms)

*Note: The GRE and observation hours are NOT required in order to apply.  We do not accept unsolicited letters of recommendation.  Applicants should only use the pre-professional recommendation forms included in the application packet.

Students admitted to any College of Nursing and Health Professions program must meet professional course requirements stated in the A-State Graduate Bulletin. 

Evidence of the following is required before registering for any professional fieldwork:

1. CPR certification valid through the academic year
2. TB skin tests if required by fieldwork facility
3. Evidence of Hepatitis B immunization or signed declination statement
4. Copy of valid health insurance
5. Copy of professional liability insurance (minimum of one million in coverage)
6. Background check

Prerequisite Courses

IMPORTANT: Satisfactory completion with a letter grade of B or higher in all prerequisite courses AND a 3.0 prerequisite GPA on a 4.0 scale are required for admission to the OTD program.

• Medical Terminology (1-3 credits)
• Anatomy & Physiology I (4 credits - Must include lab)
• Anatomy & Physiology II (4 credits - Must include lab)
• Applied or General Physics (3 credits)
• Applied Statistics (3 credits)
• General Psychology (or Introduction to Psychology) (3 credits)
• Developmental Psychology (or Lifespan Development) (3 credits)
• Abnormal Psychology (3 credits)

The OTD program is a lock-step program. Students must maintain satisfactory grades each semester; otherwise the student can be placed on probation or dismissed from the program. The OTD Program requires timely completion of the all degree requirements, including all didactic coursework, Level II Fieldwork rotations, Entry Level Competency Exam, Level III Fieldwork: Doctoral Rotation, and Capstone project. Students have up to 24 months after completion of the didactic coursework to complete both Level II Fieldwork rotations and Capstone. Timely completion of the program is monitored by the student and his/her faculty advisor using the OTD Program Graduation Check Sheet. In addition to academic standards outlined by Arkansas State University, the Department of Occupational Therapy has specific academic policies and procedures. To progress in the professional curriculum, students must:

1. Maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA in Occupational Therapy Program 
2. Receive grade of 75% or better in all professional courses
3. Maintain academic integrity and professional behavior in all classroom, laboratory, community, and fieldwork experiences
4. Maintain the standards of affiliating fieldwork facilities
5. Maintain all essential technical abilities and skills
6. Follow the AState OTD professional behavior expectations and AOTA Code of Ethics

The new philosophy and curriculum design is based on a narrative meta-model.  A narrative meta-model is predicated on the assumptions that learning is:

• Non-linear
• Evolving
• Competency fluid
• Constructivist
• Process and performance over finished work (AOTA, 2009)

The four core documents that create the foundation of our narrative meta-model are the Theory of Occupational Adaptation (Schkade and Schultz, 1992), the OT-PEP Professional Education Paradigm (Wright, 2012), Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) and the Spatiotemporal Adaptation model (Gilfoyle, Grady, and Moore, 1990).

Context of the Institution

Our institution

Arkansas State University (AState) is nestled in the northeast corner in close proximity to the “boot heel” of southeast Missouri and northwest corner of Tennessee.  Jonesboro, Arkansas is located in the lower Mississippi delta region of the United States forged from an agrarian past with key present industries of manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, professional services, and agri-business (http://www.jonesborounlimited.com/key-industries).  Arkansas State University plays a vital role in producing a workforce for the lower delta region and beyond.  The mission of AState is to “educate leaders, enhance intellectual growth and enrich lives” (https://www.astate.edu/a/student-conduct/files/_Student%20Handbook_1819.pdf).

Our college

The history of AState began as agricultural and mechanical but in 1969 the nursing program was instituted and in 1982 the College of Nursing and Health Professions (CoNHP) came into existence.  The college now boasts 30 undergraduate and graduate degrees through a wide variety of programs, departments, and the school of Nursing (http://www.astate.edu/info/about-asu/history/historic-timeline/).

 “The mission of the College of Nursing and Health Professions is to provide quality education to students, graduates and health care providers in a variety of health disciplines.  Recognizing its unique position in the lower Mississippi Delta region, the College provides educational programs designed to promote lifelong learning based on the expressed needs of its varied constituencies.  The College assesses the attainment of this mission in terms of the contributions its graduates make to health and health care in the Delta region and beyond (http://www.astate.edu/college/conhp/).

Our program

Occupational therapy is second newest department in the college of Nursing and Health Professions.  The department houses both OTA and OTD programs.  The genesis of the OTD program began in 2015.  The first OTD class graduated in August 2018.  “The mission of the Occupation Therapy Doctorate program is to provide quality education that creates leaders who possess the knowledge and skills to advocate for and implement occupational therapy services that improve the health, well-being and quality of life of those served in the Mississippi delta and surrounding regions” (http://www.astate.edu/info/academics/degrees/degree-details.dot?mid=8c5288d4-c26f-44e0-a3cf-ac3db90f25e4).

Profession’s Philosophy, Vision, and Trends

The practice of Occupational Therapy is guided by the fundamental principles articulated in the Philosophical Base of Occupational Therapy (2017).  Five specific principles frame the philosophy of AState occupational therapy. 

• Persons are born with an internal drive to participate in meaningful occupations.
• Participation is an essential element of health. Health and wellness are the building blocks of adaptation. 
• The outcome of occupational engagement is a fluid experience due to the micro and macroscopic changes of internal individual drive, contextual conditions, and qualities of the occupation.
• Occupation is the cornerstone for “health promotion and wellness, remediation and restoration, health maintenance, disease and injury prevention, and compensation and adaptation”.
• It is essential to understand the impact of occupation at the individual, community, and population levels (Commission on Education, 2017, p. 1).  

The American Occupational Therapy Association’s Philosophy of Occupational Therapy Education (2018) influenced the development process of the program’s philosophy, mission, and vision through:

• The fundamental belief that both curriculum and pedagogy is necessary to fully articulate a program’s view of students engaged in a process to learn
  about humans as occupational beings where participation is a right and affects
  a person’s health.
• The fundamental belief that “education promotes clinical reasoning and the integration of professional values, theories, evidence, ethics, and skills.
• The fundamental belief that education is the way students acquire their professional identity.

Therefore, a program’s philosophy and mission should mirror the values of occupational therapy education by:

• Including a “client-centered, occupation based, and theory driven” clinical reasoning process.
• Using “best evidence and outcomes data” to drive teaching and learning decisions.
• Designing a curriculum that includes “active and diverse learning” in and out of the classroom.
• Developing learning that is collaborative and builds on previous knowledge
• Creating opportunities for students to self-reflect, evaluate, and use professional judgment
• Promoting life-long learning (AOTA, 1)

The Occupational Therapy Doctoral program at Arkansas State University affirms the aforementioned professional and educational beliefs and values as articulated by the American Occupational Therapy Association. 

Program Philosophy

In concert with the beliefs and values expressed by the American Occupational Therapy Association, the Arkansas State University Department of Occupational Therapy’s philosophy is grounded in the Theory of Occupational Adaptation.  Occupational therapy engages clients through the use of occupations to develop or return to meaningful activities that they want or need to do. (AOTA, 2018)   https://www.aota.org/about-occupational-therapy.aspx.  It is our belief that in order to engage in meaningful occupations, human beings must have the ability to adapt to circumstances that present challenges or barriers to participation.  The Theory of Occupational Adaptation informs us about the way occupational beings adapt.  The authors of Occupational Adaptation based the theory on two assumptions:

• Occupation provides the means by which human beings adapt to changing needs and conditions, and the desire to participate in occupation is the intrinsic motivational force leading to adaptation.
• Occupational adaptation is a normative process that is most pronounced in periods of transition, both large and small. The greater the adaptive transitional needs, the greater the importance of the occupational adaptation process, and the greater the likelihood that the process will be disrupted (Schkade and Schultz, 1992).

 How occupational beings adapt

• Combination of a person’s internal desire for mastery and external demand for mastery creates a press for mastery.
• Press for mastery creates an occupational challenge that the occupational being combines with their occupational role expectation.
• An occupational being considers their internal adaptive repertoire in order to create an adaptive response. The adaptive response then becomes an occupational response.
• If an occupational being’ internal adaptive repertoire is sufficient for a task, the occupational response occurs without stress.
• If the occupational response is evaluated as masterful, then it will be integrated into the internal adaptive repertoire for use again.
• Occupational beings can use existing, modified, or new adaptive responses to address an occupational challenge.
• An occupational being becomes dysadaptive when their internal adaptive repertoire is insufficient to overcome the occupational challenge.

In order to graduate leaders that enrich the lives of others in the Mississippi delta region through their knowledge and skills to advocate for and implement occupational therapy services, graduates must learn about the occupational adaptation process, help each other develop internal adaptive repertoires, and lead each other through the occupational adaptation process that is the OTD program.   

Philosophical Frame for Learning

As described in the Occupational Therapy Model Curriculum (AOTA, 2009), “a philosophical frame for learning is a set of beliefs about the processes by which people learn and change” (p. 58).  The four core documents used to frame our learning philosophy are the OT-PEP Professional Education Paradigm (Wright, 2012), Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2010), the Spatiotemporal Adaptation Theory by Gilfoyle, Grady, and Moore (1990) and the Theory of Occupational Adaptation (Schkade and Schultz, 1992)

Kielhofner wrote that a paradigm “allows therapists to understand, in a very broad way, what they are doing when they practice” (p. 10).  The OT-PEP emerged from the Occupational Therapy body of knowledge to reveal, in a very broad way, what educators are doing and students are becoming in program.

OT-PEP Model

• Defines and describes the fundamental tenets of the occupational therapy education process.
• Explains what faculty are doing/creating when they teach.
• Provides a foundation for curriculum design, teaching methods, course sequence, etc.
• Both faculty and students are learners, each proceeds through the paradigm simultaneously, and both groups increase their internal adaptive repertoires as they go through the OT-PEP.
• The OT-PEP describes the elements of the education process that are reflective of the philosophical underpinnings of the profession and brings together these understandings as a unified whole.
• The learners are at the center of the paradigm with the three core concepts and their respective elements interlaced to form a framework for occupational therapy education.
• All of the core concepts and corresponding elements can and do occur simultaneously.
• The OT-PEP is deliberately circular and circuitous by nature.
• The internal adaptive repertoire of a learner can be measured both at a specific point in time and longitudinally.

Bloom’s revised taxonomy

the upward spiral.

Bloom’s revised taxonomy is pictured as an upward spiral to demonstrate our belief that learning is also a developmental process that builds on prior knowledge and experience.  Skill-based behaviors and foundation knowledge translates, over time, to internalized professional behaviors and clinical application that can be continuously analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated to perpetuate professional development.  The spiral also represents learning as an active process where the learner has the potential to engage in all levels of the spiral simultaneously depending on experience with a topic.    

developmental adaptation.

Embedded inside the spiral are the last two models.  First is the Spatiotemporal Adaptation Theory by Gilfoyle, Grady, and Moore (1990).  The following seven principles come from Spatiotemporal Adaptation Theory (Appendix 10 – A, p. 275).

1. Development is a function of maturation that occurs through the process of person-environment adaptation. Therefore, students cannot be expected to bypass any of the stages of the spiral.  A student can only mature by experiencing the curriculum in sequence, moving from knowing to evaluating, and expanding their repertoire to included transitional and mature behaviors.
2. Adaptation is contingent on attention to and active participation with purposeful events within the spatiotemporal dimensions of the environment. Principle two reinforces our belief in providing an education experience that includes active “real-world” experiences. 
3. Purposeful events provide meaningful experiences for the enhancement of maturation by directing a higher level of adaptive response by the “doer”. All classes, labs, fieldtrips, fieldworks, and scholarly activities are designed to provide meaningful experiences that help the “doer” retain the information for application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation.
4. Higher responses result from integration with and modification of acquired lower level responses. One cannot analyze, synthesize, or evaluate without knowing, comprehending, and applying.  Principle four supports a program where attendance is mandatory for maximum student success.
5. Adaptation spirals through primitive, transitional, and mature phases of development occurring at the same time with different learning. Principle five suggests that at any given time a person can be at simultaneously at multiple points on the spiral as new information and more familiar information is presented.  Principle five also supports the program’s activity of presenting concepts multiple times in multiple ways for maximum internalized maturity.   
6. Environmental experiences may present situations of spatiotemporal stress. With stress, the system calls forth past acquired strategies and sequences to act upon the demands of the environment and maintain the system’s homeostasis.  Thus acquired strategies and sequences are adapted with the present situation to direct higher-level responses. Gradual spatiotemporal stress is necessary in education in order for students to move from primitive behaviors to mature behaviors.  In occupational therapy this is known as the “just right challenge”.  Creating more difficulty in tests, assignments, labs, etc. must be done incrementally so that a student does not become overwhelmed and can gradually adapts existing learning strategies or create new strategies to be successful.  Thus, the curriculum is designed with more structured courses in beginning moving forward each semester with courses that require higher and higher levels of integration. 
7. Spatiotemporal distress provokes behaviors that result in dysadaptation. Spatiotemporal stress can become distress when persons are unwilling or unable to move away from primitive strategies.  Distress then becomes dysadaptation when persons try to apply primitive strategies to every situation.  Such dysadaptation is a result of delayed or absent development which is why the curriculum is designed developmentally in order to try to avoid dysadaptive behaviors.  We provide courses in a specific sequence to maximize movement through primitive and transitional developmental processes before fieldwork.  

 occupational adaptation.

The second model embedded, but unseen, in the upward spiral is Occupational Adaptation.  Occupational adaptation is unseen because it is an internal process.  The only indication that an adaptive response has occurred is through a change in behavior that leads to a transitional or mature response.  A key concept in Occupational Adaptation, germane to the curriculum design, is relative mastery.  Relative mastery is the moment in time when a person knows they have used the right combination of knowledge and skills to be efficient, effective, and satisfying to self and others (Schkade & Schulz, p. 835).  Relative mastery, however, is fleeting as new challenges are constantly arising.  Therefore, the ultimate outcome of this program’s curriculum design is to create in each student a repertoire of knowledge, skills, and behaviors that allows them to respond masterfully to the demands of an entry-level practitioner.

Fieldwork Requirements

The curriculum includes four (4) Level I fieldworks, allowing the student to acquire 40 hours of clinical experience in each of the following areas: pediatrics, psychosocial aging adults, and interprofessional practice. The Level 1 fieldworks support students’ integration of learned information to applied clinical contexts.  Fieldwork assignments are designed to foster students in developing clinical reasoning skills and to develop knowledge about the principles of occupation. Level I. experiences are integral to the curriculum design and include direct observation and participation in selected aspects of care.  Level I experiences may relate to occupational therapy service delivery, or they may be under the supervision of related professionals in emerging practice areas.

The curriculum also includes 2 Level II fieldworks that afford students with 12 weeks of clinical experiences. The Level II Fieldwork is designed to facilitate the student’s personal and professional development. The integration and application of clinical reasoning and practical skills will be required in both of the Level II. experiences, during which students will provide occupational therapy services to a range of  individuals. The fieldwork experiences are provided at approved facilities with supervision to meets professional accreditations standards. Students are responsible for all aspects of the occupational therapy process during the Level II. experiences.

 The Level III fieldwork is called the doctoral rotation and affords students with experiential learning through: Clinical practice; research, theory; leadership; program development; policy development; advocacy; and education. The doctorate rotation is a minimum of 16 weeks or 640 hours and must occur under the supervision of a mentor with expertise in the area of practice.  Prior fieldwork or work experience may not be substituted for the experiential component.  This fieldwork experience may not occur at a place the student is employed. 

Students are responsible for all fieldwork expenses.

The student must successfully complete all coursework and Level II fieldwork and pass a pre-NBCOT competency practice examination requirement prior to the commencement of the doctoral experiential component.

Advanced Knowledge through Experiential Activities and a Culminating Project

The curriculum includes the OTD 726V Level III Fieldwork:  Doctoral Rotation and the corresponding OTD 7272 Capstone. OTD 726V provides experiential learning and students complete a scholarly project called the Scholarship of Application through the capstone. The Scholarship of Application will reflect the learned experiences from the applied Level III Doctoral Rotation. These courses are built upon above-generalist content provided to students throughout the curriculum to prepare them for the doctoral expectations of: The development of a proposal with appropriate design and rationale; implementation of the study; analysis of the study data; interpretation of findings; communication of findings in a professional forum.

To graduate from the program, students must achieve a final grade of 75% or higher on all didactic courses and they must pass the Level I, II and III components of the curriculum.

Curriculum Design:  Locally grown.  World impact.

Agriculture is the heartbeat of the lower Mississippi delta including the home of Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR.  Agriculture influences every facet of Jonesboro life from economy and culture to education, healthcare, and business.  Hardworking, sun up to sun down people forge this land and take great pride in what they grow for the United States and beyond.  Jonesboro, AR produces large amounts of two staple crops that are essential to our country; cotton and rice.  Therefore, we have chosen to change our curriculum design from a river to the cotton plant.  We think the cotton plant better reflects the culture of our program, university, and geographical region. 

The cotton plant is a plant with deep roots, a stem, leaves, flowers, and bolls.  What is interesting about the cotton plant is that its utility comes after the stems, leaves, and flowers appear lifeless.  When the stem and leaves turn brown and the flowers close, a mature boll emerges with a white fluffy mass that is used to create millions of products.  Farmers and Occupational Therapy have something in common.  Both often go unnoticed until what we have to offer is needed for people to survive and thrive.  Just as Jonesboro Farmers grow cotton to provide the world with a basic ingredient for the manufacturing of food, clothes, and other products, the Occupational Therapy department at Arkansas State University is dedicated to growing educated practitioners to provide services in a region that has a dearth of healthcare providers.  Moreover, with more practitioners in the region, we can transform the landscape from meeting basic healthcare needs to developing ideas and interventions that influence the world.

The following is a pictorial representation of the new curriculum design:

Soil, nutrients and roots (unseen):  The soil is the professional and educational philosophy of Occupational Therapy from which everything grows.  The Theory of Occupational Adaptation and OT-PEP provides the nutrients and roots that anchor the curriculum design.

The stem: Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Spatiotemporal Adaptation Theory is the developmental stalk providing a strong core to develop outcomes.

The bolls:  The curricular core concepts of professional reasoning, occupation and evidence-based practice, ethics and occupational justice, leadership and advocacy, cultural awareness, health and wellness, and OTA/OTD collaboration.

Curriculum Threads

It is appropriate that our curriculum model is the cotton plant as we intend to convert the bolls into threads that become the fabric of our department.  Wendy Wood (1995) described the “Warp and Weft” of Occupational Therapy as follows.  The warp of the tapestry “consists of those anchoring, longitudinal thread that give rise to the tapestry's core fabric” (p. 44).  The warp represents engagement in occupation as a medium for health. The warp of our program consists of threads that represent foundation principles and unique features of the program.

Professional reasoning:  The previous curriculum streams of foundational sciences, fundamental skills, and lifespan development are incorporated into professional reasoning along with a greater emphasis on the clinical reasoning process including the guiding theory of Occupational Adaptation.  Fleming (1991), in her article, the Therapist with the Three-Track Mind, first articulated the thinking process of an occupational therapist as procedural, interactive, and conditional.  A fourth track, narrative reasoning, was added later.  The purpose of the professional reasoning thread is to develop the learner’ ability to name and frame clinical situations appropriate reasoning for the best outcome.  As the OT-PEP points out learners need all four types of reasoning in order to think adaptively, reflect, and create meaning.  

Scholarly inquiry:  The original 5-course research sequence will be reduced to 4 in the new scholarly inquiry thread: Scholarly inquiry 1: Evidence-based practice, scholarly inquiry 2: Quantitative methods, scholarly inquiry 3: Descriptive and qualitative methods, and scholarly inquiry 4: Application of scholarship.  The new thread still represents the necessary information about evidence-based practice, attaining and applying scholarly resources, and culminating in the use of methods and measurements to produce a scholarly report suitable for presentation and/or publication.

Ethics and Occupational Justice: The previous Occupation curricular domain that supplied students with the understanding, application and creation of concepts, interventions, and products that reflect the unique perspective of occupation in the life of a human-being will now include a unifying thread of ethics and occupational justice.  The courses will move from an implicit to explicit lens that considers the ethical, social, economic, political, and environmental opportunities and barriers to occupational participation in a rural setting.

According to Wood (1995), it is the weft, or the colored threads that fill in the warp as they are delicately woven in and out by hand, that gives the tapestry life.  The unique nature of the program at Arkansas State University comes to life in the curricular threads of OTA/OTD collaboration, cultural awareness, and leadership and advocacy.

OTA/OTD Collaboration:  Arkansas State University is unique in that it has both OTA and OTD programs in the department.  Although the programs operate independently, multiple opportunities occur for the two levels of practitioners to collaborate on assignments and other activities.  Such collaboration assists both levels of practitioners to better understand their professional roles prior to entering clinical practice.

Health and wellness:  The state of Arkansas ranks 48^th in the nation for health (United Health Foundation, 2016) https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Overall/state/AR).  Other health statistics include 2^nd for Stroke, 4^th for heart disease, and 6^th for cancer related deaths (CDC, 2014) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/arkansas.htm. Therefore, health and wellness must be included in the curriculum.  Courses such as Population Health and Health Care Delivery Systems help students address the health and wellness needs of local, state, and regional populations.  Additionally, the level III doctoral experience provides an opportunity for students to implement programs that address health and wellness needs.

Cultural awareness:  We chose the term cultural awareness instead of cultural competency because of our belief in relative mastery and the need for lifelong learning.  Courses such as History of Occupational Science, From Process to Practice, and the clinical courses all have elements that assist the student in becoming a culturally aware practitioner.  Early coursework includes cultural awareness as part of our profession’s ethical responsibility.  Second year clinical coursework emphasizes cultural awareness as part of our “commitment to promoting inclusion, participation, safety, and well-being for all recipients in various stages of life, health, and illness and to empowering all beneficiaries of service to meet their occupational needs” (AOTA, 2015, p. 1).

Advocacy and Leadership:  From the History of Occupational Science to the culmination courses of Advocacy and Leadership, Development & Assessment, and the Level III Fieldwork: Doctoral Rotation advocacy and leadership is a continuous thread.  In the introductory courses, students learn that advocacy is an ongoing part of being an Occupational Therapy professional.  In more advanced courses like Advocacy and Leadership, students learn about leadership theories, generational characteristics of leadership, leadership in different settings, and the uniqueness of one’s individual leadership journey.

Curriculum Outcomes

Upon completion of the Occupational Therapy Doctorate program at Arkansas State University, graduates will:

• Use professional reasoning to name and frame clinical situations in order to provide evidence and occupation-based interventions.
• Develop and carry out entry-level clinical research.
• Provide intervention that is ethically, socially, economically, politically, and environmentally relevant to individuals and populations in the lower Mississippi delta region.
• Understand the roles and responsibilities of OTA and OT practitioners to create collaborative partnerships in all settings.
• Develop and implement health and wellness programs for local, state, and regional populations.
• Use cultural awareness strategies to administer appropriate interventions for all persons.
• Apply leadership theories, factors, and contexts in order to develop and implement a capstone doctoral experience.

References

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2018). Philosophy of occupational therapy education. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(Suppl. 2), 7212410070. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2018.72S201

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2017). Philosophical base of occupational therapy. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71(Suppl. 2), 7112410045. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2017.716S06

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2015). Occupational therapy code of ethics (2015). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 69 (Suppl. 3), 6913410030. http://dx.doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2015.696S03

Anderson, L.W. and Krathwohl, D. (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.

Atkins, S. & Murphy, K. (1995). Reflective practice. [Electronic version]. Nursing Standard, 9, 31-37.

Bruner, J. S. (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Gilfoyle, E.M., Grady, A.P. and Moore, J.C., (1990). Children adapt:  A theory of sensorimotor-sensory development (2nd Ed.). Thorofare, NJ: Slack, Inc.

Kielhofner, G. (1997). Conceptual Foundations of Occupational Therapy (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: F.A. Davis.

King, L. (1978). The 1978 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture: Toward a Science of Adaptive Responses. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 32, 429-437.

David R. Krathwohl (2002) A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy: An Overview,Theory Into Practice, 41:4, 212-218, doi: 10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2  https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2.

OT Model Curriculum Ad Hoc Committee. (2008). Occupational Therapy Model Curriculum.  American Occupational Therapy Association. Bethesda, MD. https://www.aota.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/EducationCareers/Educators/OT-Model-Curriculum.pdf.   

Reagan, T. (1993). Educating the “Reflective Practitioner”: The Contribution of Philosophy of Education. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 26, 189-196.

Schkade, J. and Schulz, S., (1992). Occupational adaptation: Toward a holistic approach for contemporary practice, part 1. American Journal of Occupational Therapy (46), 829-837. doi: 10.5014.ajot.46.9.829.

Schon, Donald A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Schon, Donald A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Schwartz, K. (1991). Clinical Reasoning and New Ideas on Intelligence: Implications forTeaching and Learning. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 45,1033-1037.

Shephard, K. & Jensen, G. (1990). Physical Therapist Curricula for the 1990’s: Educating The Reflective Practitioner. Physical Therapy, 70, 566-572

Spence, L. (2001). The Case Against Teaching. Change, Nov/Dec, 11-19.

Upshur, R. (2001). The Status of Qualitative Research as Evidence. In J. Morse, J. Swanson, & A. Kuzel (Eds.), The Nature of Qualitative Evidence (pp. 5-26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wood, W. (1995). Weaving the Warp and Weft of Occupational Therapy: An Art and Science for All Times. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 49, 44-49.

Wright, C. E.(2012) OT-PEP: Development of a professional education paradigm for Occupational Therapy. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 6. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/ojot/vol1/iss1/6

Yerxa, E. (1967). The 1966 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture: Authentic Occupational Therapy. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 21, 1-9.

Curriculum and degree requirements can be found in the most current Graduate Bulletin.

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Course Sequence

Occupational therapy is one of the most in demand professions in the United States. Arkansas projects a 20% increase in an already high need within the next ten years. The number of programs in the field has, like many health professions, expanded to accommodate the increased number of individuals who experience significant challenge in regards to achieving life balance that supports health, wellness and quality of life. Doctorate-level graduates are educated to competently meet the needs of current practice settings, and to skillfully move into emerging practice areas. Current practice settings and emerging practice areas include but not limited to:

• Psychosocial treatments for individuals experiencing:
  • Mild to moderate cognitive loss.
  • Behaviors harmful to the individual’s health, development and overall quality of life.
  • Family-based needs.
  • Transitional support following divorce, death of a loved one, change in health status, change in locations.
  • Mental health symptoms.
  • Moderate to severe cognitive change due to progressive neurological conditions.
• Functional cognition.
• Aging in place.
• Home and environmental adaptations.
• Work and job placement with accommodations reflective of need.
• Coaching to support socialization for individuals maturing into adolescence and young adulthood with disabilities.
• Preventive health for adults with chronic diseases who live in rural locations.
• Coaching for career transitions.
• Traditional pediatric, adult, aging adult occupational therapy services.
• Community mobility including driving evaluations.
• Low vision services.

The A-State entry-level doctoral degree program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), located at 6116 Executive Boulevard, Suite 200, North Bethesda, MD 20852-4929. For more information please contact ACOTE by phone at (301) 652-AOTA or visit www.acoteonline.org.  The OTD program will undergo reaccreditation in 2024/2025.

Graduates will be eligible to sit for the national certification examination for the occupational therapist administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). After successful completion of this exam, the individual will be an Occupational Therapist, Registered (OTR). In addition, all states require licensure in order to practice; however, state licenses are usually based on the results of the NBCOT Certification Examination. Note that a felony conviction may affect a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT certification examination or attain state licensure.

The OTD program is a lock-step program. Students must maintain satisfactory grades in each semester; otherwise the student can be placed on probation or dismissed from the program. The OTD Program requires timely completion of the all degree requirements, including all didactic coursework, Level II Fieldwork rotations, Entry Level Competency Exam, Level III Fieldwork: Doctoral Rotation, and Capstone project. Students have up to 24 months after completion of the didactic coursework to complete both Level II Fieldwork rotations and the Doctoral Rotation experience with Capstone project. Timely completion of the program is monitored by the student and his/her faculty advisor using the OTD Program Graduation Check Sheet. In addition to academic standards outlined by Arkansas State University, the Department of Occupational Therapy has specific academic policies and procedures. To progress in the professional curriculum, students must: 

1. maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA in all Occupational Therapy Program courses,

2. receive grades of C or better in all professional courses,

3. maintain academic integrity and professional behavior in classroom, laboratory, any fieldwork sites visited, and in the community,

4. maintain the standards of affiliating fieldwork facilities, and

5. exhibit affective behaviors consistent with the Professional Behavior Expectations and AOTA Code of Ethics.

When is application due date? February 1st

When will I be notified of status? March 31

What if I miss the application deadline? We do not accept applications after February 1.

What is reviewed in the admission packet?

• Earned Bachelor’s Degree
• Pre-requisite coursework
• Prerequisite and Cumulative GPA
• Additional preparation in advanced coursework
• Three pre-professional evaluations
• English proficiency (if foreign born)
• Volunteer and leadership service  

Do you require observation hours?  No

Do you require the GRE? No

Can I go part-time? No

Can I work while I attending the program?

The program is full time and very demanding. Due to the rigor of the education, we strongly advise you not to work. In addition to in class lectures, some of the assignments are completed in the community, some with peers, and some with other students from different degree programs. Employment while enrolled in the program may lead to poor academic performance and could result in failure and eventual dismissal from the program.

What fieldwork expenses should I plan for?

You should plan to provide your own transportation, lodging, food, and general living expenses. You will have 4 - Level I Fieldwork placements (40 hours each), 2 - Level II Fieldwork placements (12 weeks each) and one Capstone (14 weeks).  Any and all fieldwork placements may take place outside of the Jonesboro area.  

How is an entry-level doctorate program different from a masters-level program?

Both the occupational therapy doctorate program and the master level occupational therapy program are points of entry into the profession of occupational therapy. Both forms of education are accredited by ACOTE. Both degree levels prepare entry-level occupational therapy generalists. The doctoral degree graduates professionals with above-generalist level knowledge and advanced skills that support their work in emerging practice areas as well as current practice settings.

What major should I pick as an undergraduate student preparing for a degree in occupational therapy?

There is no specific undergraduate degree required.  However, all pre-requisite courses must be completed regardless of undergraduate degree.  Undergraduate degrees closely related to Occupational Therapy include: Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work.  In the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Arkansas State University, the Health Studies degree is also a popular choice for students planning to apply to the Occupational Therapy program.  No admission preference is given to students with these specific degrees.

How do I know if my prerequisites from another University will count? 

If you have a question about any of your prerequisites, contact the program director, Dr. Christine Wright at cwright@astate.edu.  Have your course descriptions and course syllabi available for review.

Organizational Memberships

American Occupational Therapy Association membership is strongly encouraged at an approximate cost of $75 per year. 

Health Insurance

The University offers each student the opportunity to purchase an accident and hospitalization insurance policy as part of a group consisting of A-State students and students enrolled in other universities across the state. Membership in the group is voluntary. Application forms are available through the website located at http://www.astate.edu/a/student-health-center/index.dot.  Health insurance is required during fieldwork educational experiences. 

Physical Exam and Immunizations

Fieldwork education agreements require specific immunizations and an annual physical examination.  Costs for these procedures vary and are available through the A-State Student Health Center.  Price information is available at http://www.astate.edu/a/student-health-center/index.dot.  TB mask fitting has been $25.  Immunizations may also be obtained through the Craighead County Health Department.

Fieldwork Education

You are responsible for living expenses, transportation, and tuition while on all fieldwork education experiences.  The fee for the fieldwork education assessment tool is approximately $50.00.  Additional information will be provided by the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator.

Other Expenses

Other costs associated with the program may include but, are not limited to: composite class photograph ($75), A-State OT polo shirt ($80), graduation fees ($85), SOTA Membership ($10).