Consideration of adopting the staff recommendation to the Board relating to a request for a new degree program from Texas Woman’s University for a Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) degree with a major in Occupational Therapy
Recommendation: Approval
Rationale: The OTD is a clinical practice degree that prepares students for post-professional leadership as a master practitioner, advocate, and educator to initiate clinical innovation. TWU will continue to offer the Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) degree and its existing curriculum as the entry to the profession. The proposed program is a post-professional degree. Students entering the program will be practicing occupational therapists who will fill leadership roles in occupational therapy practice, advocacy, and education.
The proposed program would be offered online to master’s prepared occupational therapists. The institution has a record of success in
occupational therapy at the master’s and Ph.D. level. The proposed TWU OTD program would be the first in Texas and adjacent states.
Contingencies: The institution shall submit annual progress reports on the new program for the first five years.
Curriculum Design: The proposed program consists of two components, core coursework and individually mentored professional development in an area of specialization. Core coursework is focused on leadership in three areas: role of master practitioner, advocate, and educator. While engaged in core coursework, students will simultaneously enroll in a series of three individually mentored courses, and this includes experiential learning in the field and a doctoral capstone project.
Texas Woman’s University (TWU) (Accountability Peer Group: Doctoral University)
Success Measures Rate Comparison to State Average
Graduate Programs Master’s Graduation Rate* 67.4% Above Below Doctoral Graduation Rate 48.3% Above Below Status of Recently
Approved Doctoral Programs
The institution met its projected enrollments for all new doctoral
program(s) approved in the last five years: Yes No The institution met its resource commitments for new doctoral program(s)
approved in the last five years: Yes No *Rate for the institution as calculated in the Board’s Accountability System, excluding The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.
04/14 Proposed Doctor of Occupational Therapy
Texas Woman’s University (TWU) proposes to offer a post-professional (master’s degree to doctoral degree) Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) degree program online. The
proposed program consists of 33 semester credit hours focused primarily on clinical and leadership instruction. The curriculum consists of 27 SCHs of required coursework, including three Mentored Professional Development courses and a doctoral capstone project, plus six elective SCHs. Optimum enrollment is 6 - 7 SCHs per semester for completion of the degree in approximately a year and a half. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that between 2010 and 2020 the employment of occupational therapists is expected to increase 33 percent. According to the BLS, this percentage increase is much faster than the average for all
occupations. The Texas Workforce Commission predicts that between 2010 and 2020 there will be an average of 145 OT openings per year due to replacements and 260 average OT openings per year due to industry growth, for a total of 405 average OT openings per year.
TWU currently offers both master’s and doctoral-level OT programs in the School of Occupational Therapy. The Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) is an entry-level degree for persons who wish to become occupational therapists. TWU also offers the Ph.D. in occupational therapy which is primarily a research degree that prepares occupational therapists for advanced scholarly careers in academia and practice.
A site visit was conducted by staff on January 27, 2014, along with Dr. JoAnne Wright from the University of Utah, Dr. Al Copolillo from Virginia Commonwealth University, and Dr. Steven Taff from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The consultants wrote in their site visit report, “TWU has a rich history of offering online education and the OT department currently offers a PhD degree in the distance education format. The model detailed in the proposal appears adequate to foster an online community of scholars through use of the Blackboard LMS and the “flipped” classroom instructional model. PhD students reported that they felt a strong sense of connectedness with their mentors in the online format. The OTD curriculum is well-balanced with five courses (three shared with the PhD degree) covering advanced practice topics and three more taught as independent study under the direction of individually selected faculty mentors. We feel that the TWU Program in Occupational Therapy has proposed a sound plan and has excellent resources-faculty expertise, technology expertise and support, and institutional financial and strategic planning support to deliver a high-quality post-professional OTD.”
Five-year total costs for the program are estimated at $889,629, with estimated revenues of $949,697.
Start-Up Projections: Yr. 1 Yr. 2 Yr. 3 Yr. 4 Yr. 5
Students Enrolled 12 22 22 22 22
Graduates 10 10 10 10
Avg. Financial Assistance $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000
Students Assisted 4 4 4 4 2
Core Faculty 10 10 10 10 10
Total Costs $131,391 $194,891 $198,787 $180,476 $184,084
Total Funding $52,385 $75,903 $273,803 $273,803 $273,803
Major Commitments:
TWU commits to the addition of three, single credit hour organized courses to be taken concurrently with the Mentored Professional Development portion of the program.
Final Assessment:
The institution has a proactive plan to recruit underrepresented students to the program:
Yes No
The chief executive officer of the institution certified, and staff have determined, that the institution will have sufficient funds to support the program: Yes No
The proposed program satisfactorily meets the Board’s criteria for new doctoral programs
(19 TAC Section 5.46): Yes No
Curriculum Side by Side:
Texas Woman’s University School of Occupational Therapy Programs
Preparation Levels, Employment Focus, Curriculum, and Student Learning Outcomes MASTER OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY DOCTOR OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PhD in OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PREPARATION LEVEL
Entry-level education for occupational therapy practice
Post-professional clinical practice, leadership and
education.
Post-professional education in scholarship and research Generalist Training Specialist Training Academic and Research Training
EMPLOYMENT
Occupational therapy practice
Occupational therapy leadership positions in health
care specialty areas, management, and clinical faculty in higher education
Advanced careers in academia, research and practice
04/14 Texas Woman’s University School of Occupational Therapy Programs
Preparation Levels, Employment Focus, Curriculum, and Student Learning Outcomes MASTER OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY DOCTOR OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PhD in OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY CURRICULUM
Semester I: Foundations Semester I Semester I
Foundations of OT Practice Current Issues & Trends in OT Theory and Knowledge Development OT Clinical Neuroscience for OT Mentored Professional
Development I
Learning Designs for OT Knowledge
Persons, Tools, & Occupations Professional Development I Semester II
Scholarly Inquiry Semester II Neuroscience Applications: OT & Adaptation
Semester II: Adult Populations
Advanced Evidence Based OT Practitioner
Theory of Occupational Adaptation
Evaluation Process in OT Elective Semester III OT in Adolescence to Early
Adult
Semester IV Applied Research Designs Lab Adolescence to Early
Adult
Applied Research Designs Possible Electives: Prof Reasoning & Fieldwork Mentored Professional
Development II
Current Issues & Trends in OT Applied Research Methods Professional Development II Scholarly Writing
Appraising the Evidence Seminar
Semester VI Grant Writing in OT Semester III: Mental Health &
Community
Theory and Knowledge Development OT
Semester IV Occupation, Wellness &
Adaptation
Learning Designs for OT Knowledge
Statistics for OT Mental Health and Social
Participation
Semester VII Occupation in Context Prof Reasoning & Fieldwork Mentored Professional
Development III
Semester V
Semester IV: Older Adult Professional Development III Instrumentation in OT OT in Middle to Late
Adulthood
Elective Advanced Qualitative Research
Lab Middle to Late Adulthood Also Required:
Prof Reasoning & Fieldwork Research Tool Advanced Statistics course
Assistive and Computer Technology
Programmatic Research Planning Designing, Evaluating,
Managing Systems
Qualifying Exams Semester V: Infancy and
Childhood
Dissertation OT in Infancy and Childhood
MASTER OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY DOCTOR OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PhD in OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY CURRICULUM (continued)
Prof Reasoning & Fieldwork Rehabilitation Technology Prof Reasoning Capstone Semesters VI & VII Occupational Therapy Fieldwork
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Display continuous and sustained entry- level performance in application of
the occupational therapy process within a variety of client conditions and contexts.
Professional leadership as a master practitioner, advocate, and educator to initiate clinical
innovation using evidence-based practices, demonstrate
activism through distinctive roles in health care and public health systems and disseminate
knowledge through teaching and publication in practice
related venues.
Conduct independent research and demonstrate leadership in advancing the occupational
therapy practice base of knowledge
