OHS students: reaching a decision about hosting placements

Physiotherapists have an established role in occupational health, and their undergraduate education is important in preparation for such practice. At the University of South Australia students undertake small occupational health and safety projects on-site in industry. These industry placements are a challenge to secure, and the supervising industry hosts are generally not physiotherapists. This study sought to uncover influences involved when organisations consider hosting students. A qualitative approach was taken where semistructured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of nine industry hosts to explore their views about placements. Seven hosts were managers and two were physiotherapists. Three main themes came from the data analysis. The first and overriding theme was the "mutual benefit" in hosting students, where students gained valuable experience from working in industry on real problems, and hosts gained from the students' activities. The second theme related to what the host organisation gained - "the transfer and acquisition of resources, knowledge and skills" provided by the students, the nature and quality of which were important to hosts. The last theme had two components of "timing and time." The timing of student activities and how that fits with other activities simultaneously happening within the organisation was an important factor. Finally, participants reported consideration of the time taken to supervise the students in relation to time saved through student activities which assisted the host organization. Knowldege about influencing factors gained from this study may assist physiotherapy educators in securing student placements in industry.