Public and private blogging during placements: Perspectives of occupational therapy students

Background: Occupational therapy students complete practice education placements as part of their degree programmes. Sufficient support during these placements is vital since the transition from the classroom to clinical practice can present many challenges. Ensuring support can be difficult, given that these placements occur across a wide geographical area. Blogs were identified as a possible innovative way of providing distance support and a study was undertaken to examine the usefulness of this tool in occupational therapy practice education. Methods: A descriptive investigation of a private blog at Trinity College, University of Dublin, and a public blog at the University of Limerick was conducted during one practice education placement. An online survey was used to capture quantitative and qualitative data on the students' experience of blogging during practice education. Findings: Blogging was not found to be a useful tool for developing reflection or clinical reasoning skills by this student sample, but was found to be beneficial for peer support and learning. Conclusions: The research indicates the potential of using blogging as a tool for peer support and learning. Further research on its application and the use of other social media in healthcare education is required.