Providing opportunities for student self-assessment: the impact on the acquisition of psychomotor skills in occupational therapy students

The Occupational Therapy department at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa is responsible for ensuring students achieve psychomotor skill proficiency, as it is an essential component of health care practice. The aim of this study was to determine whether the introduction of opportunities to afford self-evaluation better prepared students for psychomotor skill performance during clinical fieldwork. A quantitative analytical longitudinal design was used with a sample of second-year BSc occupational therapy students from 2007–2010. Self-assessment opportunities were introduced to students in 2009, enabling the comparisons of students’ performance based on Fitts and Posner’s motor skills learning theory. The results indicated that the pre-intervention group demonstrated poor psychomotor skill ability compared to the intervention group, concluding that students require deliberate opportunities to practice self-evaluation skills in their early years of study.