The Occupational Therapy Program at this Canadian university is a French program however, students must be bilingual to function in English or French clinical fieldwork settings. An understanding of the role of language in successful completion of program requirements was needed to effectively support students' education. The study objectives were to identify the role of linguistic factors in students' academic and clinical performance and to provide recommendations for strategies to address areas of learning difficulty. A multimethod approach used 4 data sources: (1) Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) informal language assessment scores, (2) grade point average (GPA), (3) fieldwork evaluation reports, and (4) an online survey of program graduates. The GPA on admission and MMI scores of 140 students predicted respectively only 20% and 2% of the variation in GPA on program completion. The areas of poorest performance in failed clinical fieldwork reports were in clinical reasoning and communication competencies. Among survey respondents (n = 47), 44.5% reported that a clinical placement in their second language with related charting (51.6%) and client communication (40.9%) were the most significant difficulties encountered in the program. Clients with mental health issues (45.4%) were the most challenging population to work with, attributed to communication barriers in the students' second language. Strategies are proposed to support occupational therapy students' academic and clinical language proficiency, including conversational training courses, problem-based learning activities in students' second language, focussed teaching on the clinical reasoning process and reflective skills, and language coaching to address early signs of difficulty in clinical fieldwork.

中文翻译：

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职业治疗学生的首选语言对加拿大大学课程中学术和临床表现的影响。

这所加拿大大学的职业治疗项目是法语项目，但学生必须会双语才能在英语或法语临床实地工作环境中发挥作用。需要了解语言在成功完成课程要求中的作用，才能有效地支持学生的教育。研究目标是确定语言因素在学生学业和临床表现中的作用，并为解决学习困难领域的策略提供建议。多方法方法使用 4 个数据源：(1) 多次迷你访谈 (MMI) 非正式语言评估分数，(2) 平均绩点 (GPA)，(3) 实地考察评估报告，以及 (4) 项目毕业生在线调查。140 名学生的入学 GPA 和 MMI 分数分别仅预测了课程完成 GPA 变化的 20% 和 2%。在失败的临床实地调查报告中，表现最差的领域是临床推理和沟通能力。在调查受访者 (n = 47) 中，44.5% 的人报告说，以他们的第二语言进行临床实习并附上相关图表 (51.6%) 和客户沟通 (40.9%) 是该计划遇到的最重大困难。有心理健康问题的客户 (45.4%) 是最具挑战性的工作人群，这归因于学生第二语言的沟通障碍。提出了支持职业治疗学生的学术和临床语言能力的策略，包括会话培训课程，