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TWU offers a PhD in
Occupational Therapy. Our graduate program is ranked
in the nation's top ten by U.S. News & World Report's Best
Graduate Programs. The research emphasis is on the
phenomenon of adaptation, its relationship to occupation, and
the methods to promote successful adaptive responses.
Didactic courses in this program are offered through videoconference
(with online components)
between our Denton, Dallas, and Houston
Campuses.
Facts
about our PhD in OT program
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The
program began in 1993 and has graduated more than 25 PhDs
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Graduate
assistantships are frequently available
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Classroom
courses are taught on scheduled Fridays (Denton,
Dallas, or Houston) and via the Internet
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The majority of our
fulltime OT faculty have PhDs
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Research
Focus
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Since its beginning, a major goal of
the PhD program has been to develop a research tradition based
on the concept of occupational adaptation.
Scholarly work on occupational adaptation has taken two forms.
One involves implementation and evaluation of the
Occupational Adaptation frame of reference for practice in
occupational therapy. In
this frame of reference, occupational adaptation is viewed as
an internal process that occurs within individuals, reflected
by the efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction to self and
others of the individual’s occupational performance as
judged by the individual client.
(Click here to see overview of theory of OA)
The second form of scholarship on occupational adaptation is
study of naturally-occurring adaptive processes involving
interaction between persons and environments.
In this work, occupational adaptation is viewed as
systemic process that occurs at various levels beyond the
individual, including households and residential settings,
major occupational contexts such as school, work, and leisure
settings, and at the level of neighborhood and community.
These two forms of
scholarly work are often referred to as applied and basic
research, both of which are considered important commitments
within the PhD program. Scholarship
on occupational adaptation also reflects two traditions within
the profession of occupational therapy.
One is to further the agenda of the profession itself,
and the other is to contribute to, as well as borrow from, the
broader intellectual context in which our work occurs.
Curriculum |
