Psychological Safety and Inclusive Teaching Practices: Occupational Therapy Faculty's Perception for Student Success

Introduction: Psychological safety (PS) is the belief that it is safe to freely voice concerns and ideas, with little or no fear of reprimand, or belittlement. Currently, there is a gap in the literature about the construct of PS within U.S. Occupational Therapy (OT) educational programs related to faculty leadership and student engagement.

Objectives: This capstone explored faculty's perception of PS within their program and highlighted the need to 1) introduce the concept of PS in OT education 2) call to action the use of PS practices in OT academics to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in OT education and 3) utilize inclusive instructional design in OT curriculum to foster PS.

Methods: An exploratory, cross-sectional online survey design consisting of 44 closed-ended questions was distributed through virtual platforms and email Listserves to OT/OTA faculty in the U.S. Questions explored PS on a Likert scale ranking and inclusive teaching practices (ITP) through dichotomous yes/no responses. By the response deadline, 85 valid responses were received.

Results: Descriptive statistics results of this capstone indicated faculty report a perception of PS when working in teams. On average, participants fell between “sometimes” and “often” for overall PS (M= 3.61) and ITP (M=3.86). For ITP practices, transparency (M= 4.11) and academic belonging (M= 4.04) were the most used strategies. Correlational statistics results indicated no significant association between PS and ITP strategies (r=.091), program cohort size to PS (r= .050), and faculty team size to PS (r= .050). There was a significant association observed between overall PS and ITP subscale critical engagement (CE) (r= .235).

Discussion: The findings indicated that there is no strong association between the overall PS and ITP within OT education; however, the results do indicate the presence of both constructs within OTA/OTA programs. Faculty team size and program cohort size are not mediating factors affecting PS or ITP use. Therefore, all OT/ OTA programs could consider utilizing PS and ITP strategies in their program curriculum. Faculty who perceive greater overall PS in their teams are also more likely to use specific critical engagement strategies in their courses.

Conclusion: This capstone adds to the body of OT literature to introduce the construct of PS in OT education and highlights faculty’s use of ITP strategies in OT education. Additionally, OT/OTA faculty could benefit from continuing education regarding PS leadership practices, utilization of ITP strategies in the classroom to support DEI in OT curriculum and continuing ongoing research toward trauma-informed approaches as an educational framework in OT education to support critical student engagement.