Occupational therapists, self-regulation, and primary schools: A scoping review

The primary school setting is a dynamic practice context for occupational therapists. Despite a clear interest in understanding and intervening in self-regulation in the classroom, little school-specific literature is available.

A scoping review was conducted to examine how occupational therapists understand self-regulation in the mainstream primary school setting. The literature was searched as follows: occupational therapists (population [P]); self-regulation intervention, assessment, or program (concept [C]); and education, school, and classrooms (context [C]).

No consumers were directly involved in this review. The topic was informed by occupational therapy practice with teachers and families to ensure relevance to school and community needs.

Literature was scoped from five key health databases (CINAHL Complete, Embase via Ovid, ERIC, Ovid MEDLINE, and APA PsycInfo), with 192 papers initially identified. Two authors completed initial title and abstract screening, and full-text papers were reviewed by the entire research team. Data were charted into tables following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. Papers were included if occupational therapists were the main population of interest; included an intervention that improved classroom self-regulation skills (student or teacher), and occurred in a mainstream primary school (public or private).

Twelve papers were included in the final review. Seven papers were from a peer-reviewed source, and five papers were dissertations (i.e. grey literature). Self-regulation continues to be incompletely considered in the included papers, with papers either focussed on related constructs or on self-regulation-targeting programmes. Self-regulation was also not well understood occupationally, with little to no operationalisation in terms of students' school-related occupational performance and/or engagement outcomes. Further research is needed to appropriately conceptualise, define, and map self-regulation occupationally.