The present study has an explorative design with its starting point in Törnebohm´s theory of paradigms. The aim of this study was to identify and describe how newly enrolled occupational therapy students perceived their future profession, especially regarding world view and field of action view. Written data were collected using essay questions. Data analysis/synthesis were accomplished qualitatively. Three themes were identified in the material: Notions of some concepts fundamental to occupational therapy; Notions of the “setting” of occupational therapy reality and Notions of the operational reality of occupational therapy. With their limited personal experience of occupational therapy, the students´ conceptions reflected interested outsiders´ views on the topic, influenced by information available in society and the questions given. They were shown to possess relevant and varied information about occupational therapy, but had difficulties in designating the different phenomena.

The present study has an explorative, comparative design with its starting point in Törnebohm´s theory of paradigms. The aim of the study was to identify and describe how qualified OT students perceived their future profession, especially regarding world view and field of action view, and to compare their conceptions with those of newly enrolled OT students in order to find out the differences and similarities between the two aggregations of paradigms. Data were collected in writing, using essay questions. Data analysis/synthesis was accomplished qualitatively. The comparision between the two groups was carried out through the structure of three themes with appurtenant categories. The qualified occupational therapist students´ notions gave expression to a constant application of a holistic health perspective which in contrast to those of the newly enrolled occupational therapist students resulted in numerous examples of interrelations between themes belonging to different paradigm components. In line with Törnebohm (1987) this is characteristic for paradigms.

The present study has an explorative design with its starting point in Törnebohm´s theory of paradigms. The primary aim of the study was to identify and characterize seven experienced occupational therapists´ perceptions of their profession, especially regarding world view and field of action view. The secondary aim was to find out if there were similarities among the respondents´ personal paradigms that could constitute a potential, local ideology for the group. Qualitative data were collected using audio- and video-taped, thematic discussions which involved focus groups on three occasions during the autumn of 1996. Within the two paradigm components world view and field of action view the data were analysed qualitatively. The results show several unifying factors and dissimilarities were limited to specifications within the unifying factors, with regard to the respondents´ notions. The unifying factors could be described as a potential, local ideology for the group.

The aim of this study was to examine and characterize an aggregation of experienced occupational therapists´ exam papers with regard to the occupational therapists´ research interests, concerning especially ontological and strategical matters, during the time period 1984-1996. The title pages, summaries and results discussions of 84 papers were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively with the starting point in two of the components from Törnebohm´s structure of paradigms: the world view- and the field of action view-component. The occupational therapists´ interest in research subjects related to the field of action view component of paradigms, and applied research on strategical matters, dominates throughout the material. The interest in research subjects related to the world view component of paradigms, and basic research on ontological matters, increases in the last five year period. The increasing interest in more ontological matters seems as a natural and necessary progress for a profession which is deeply involved in knowledge aquired by experience. Only by the development of a “double-edged” knowledge, the profession has the possibility of developing and adapting to future demands.

The aim of this study was to identify and characterise conceptions of health in a group of experienced occupational therapists. Data-collection involved the occupational therapists´ personal accounts of the meaning of health and data analysis was accomplished qualitatively. The material was found to comprise 52 distinguishable articulations of the meaning of health, which were categorized under three main themes: 22 articulations of Health as “feeling fine“; 20 articulations of Health as ability to act; and 10 articulations of Health as an objective state of body and/or mind. The results show a very strong tendency towards holistic health conceptions and also toward a phenomenological view on the body. If this tendency should be taken to reflect current basic views within the profession this would indicate a movement away from biomedical frames of reference on the theoretical level. This would seem to imply consequent movements on the practice level away from organ focused interventions to the benefit of interventions in the person/context dimension of occupational performance. Studies of processes of change seem to be needed and we suggest that a paradigm theory approach probably be most pertinent.