What factors contribute to failure of fieldwork placement? Perspectives of supervisors and university fieldwork educators

Failing a fieldwork placement can be a challenging and emotional experience. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of placement supervisors and university fieldwork educators (UFEs) of the factors that contribute to occupational therapy students failing placement. Twenty placement supervisors and four UFEs participated, and completed single instance surveys and interviews. Failure of a placement was noted to be a stressful experience for all stakeholders. Reasons identified for student failure included poor communication and reflection skills; non-disclosure of health issues and an inability to accept feedback. Placement supervisors highlighted that although failing a student was difficult, there was a need to uphold the values and standards of the profession. Strategies to facilitate placement success were identified.

The Ethnographic Moment: Event and Debate in Mediatized Fieldwork

This article introduces the term ‘the ethnographic moment’, which takes up and ‘plays’ with the long-disputed ‘ethnographic present’ in anthropology, as an indicator of changing conditions and requirements for ethnography in the context of mass media and mediation. It argues that event and debate, rather than structure and practice, have become pivotal aspects in thinking and conducting fieldwork that has to deal with the ephemeral. At the same time, it tries to show that an unquestioning acceptance of technological advancement and speed of societal change immunizes us to the thinkable absence of media and obscures analysis of lasting states of injustice and inequality, in whose (re-)production they have a stake.

Fieldwork in Upstate New York: Methods

production and perception experiments for the NCS and Low Back Merger in Ogdensburg, NY