Teaching strategies for the development of clinical reasoning

A primary aim of occupational therapy education is to teach students how to think like practitioners, that is, how to engage in clinical reasoning. Since the early 1980s, occupational therapy clinical reasoning research has elucidated a language that describes the various types of thinking therapists use in clinical practice, a language that has the potential to make previously tacit thought processes accessible to conscious examination and improvement. Occupational therapy educators can use that language to make their teaching of clinical reasoning more explicit to students. This article examines occupational therapy teaching methods using the language of clinical reasoning, categorizing them by the types of clinical reasoning they promote. Current clinical reasoning language is reviewed, and teaching strategies to facilitate the various types of clinical reasoning are described.