This article describes the development and reliability testing of the Role Checklist, a two-part written inventory designed to identify past, present, and future roles and the degree to which individuals value each role. Roles included provide expectations and/or opportunities for occupational behavior, such as student, worker, volunteer, care giver, home maintainer, friend, family member, religious participant, hobbyist/amateur, and participant in organizations. To assess reliability, we administered the checklist twice to a group of 124 normal volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 79. Values obtained for kappa and weighted kappa, measures of agreement that correct for chance agreement, suggested moderate or better agreement for Parts 1 and 2 of the checklist. We concluded, therefore, that the checklist has satisfactory test/retest reliability.

Through occupational roles, individuals structure their time to meet theirpersonal needsand the demands ofsociety. Due to various factors, older adults frequently experience loss of occupational roles, which may decrease tbe subjective quality oflife. The present study used the model ofhuman occupation as a conceptual framework to examine the relationship between the number and meaningfulness of roles performed and life satisfaction in a sample of 112 noninstitutionalized elderly persons. The results suggest a positive, significant relationship between life satisfaction and the number ofrolesperformed and the level ofinvolvement in meaningful roles. These findings lend support to the basic premise ofoccupational therapy, that occupation can maintain and/or restore health.

The purpose of this study was to examine current trends in the use of activities by occupational therapists, to identify factors influencing their selection of activities, and to examine relationships between activities used and therapeutic goals. A questionnaire sent to 500 members of the American Occupational Therapy Association elicited a low response rate; thus, the results are descriptive of only 22% of the original population. The therapists who responded were primarily using activities of daily living and physical or exercise-related modalities although there were some differences according to area of practice and according to the time period in which the therapist received professional training. Clinical education and classroom education were the most frequently cited influences on activity selection, and remediation of musculoskeletal deficits was the most frequently mentioned therapeutic goal.

Two notable characteristics of current psychosocial occupational therapy practice are ideological conflictand unclear or inconsistent role definitions. Because professional education can contribute to or alleviate ideological conflict; this study proposed an educational needs assessment that would examine relationships between predominant ideologies in psychosocial practice and therapists' corresponding treatment activities. The study surveyed therapists across the United States and found that there was a widespread prevalence of occupational behavior practices, despite the subjects' claims of differing ideologies. Although all therapists were affected by their work enuironment; the therapists adhering to the occupational behavior ideology were less affected by theenvironment in shaping theirroles according to professional beliefs.

Play, a subjective and naturalistic behavior, both reflects and facilitates development As such, it provides an important area of research for occupational therapy. Although a multitude of methods and instruments exist for studying play, they are not comparable in terms oftheirpsychometric properties nor in terms of the approach they take to conceptualizing play. This article identifies and critiques a number of instruments that examine the behavior exhibited during play, the environment ofplay, andpeople's attitudes toward play. Available information on the reliability and validity of the reviewed instruments is presented, and the problems associated with assessingplay behaviors are described It is concluded that play assessment is presently in a nascent stage of evolution and therefore represents a potentially fruitful area for additional research.Occupational therapistshavehistorically used playmediaas a majorintervention strategy. In the past two decades,a number of theoretical, clinical, and research applications of play in occupational therapy have appeared in the literature. As clinicians and researchers turn their attention to play, it becomes compelling to consider how data will be collected on this phenomenon. Although the description and measurement of play is in its infancy, a number of noteworthy procedures exist for generatingdata on play. Theymaybe useful toolsfor research,and some would alsoproperly serve as the objects of reliability and validity studies.This article identifies and critiques a number of promisingprocedures and instrumentsthat yield data on play throughout the lifespan. The variety of tools identified herein reflects the complexity of the task of generating meaningful observations and measures ofplayas well as the diverse approaches that have been taken in the study of play. The following categories of procedures and instruments are discussed: developmental assessments of play and leisure, measures of the play environment,instrumentsfor investigating the meaning of leisureand attitudes toward leisure, and ethnographic/ecological procedures.

A review of studies examining differences between graduate and undergraduate occupational therapy students and therapists educated at these levels suggests that while students are frequently found to be similar in their values and learning styles, therapists with graduate and undergraduate degrees may differ in their professional contributions and attitudes. Secondary analyses of two studies completed by the present authors, however, find evidence of differences in students' values and learning preferences, as well as a relationship between psychosocial occupational therapists' level of education and the degree of eclecticism in their theoretical orientation, the degree of consistency between their practices and beliefs, and their movement from staff into senior level positions. Implications of the literature and these studies are that an evolution toward master's level entry along with an increased emphasis on graduate education of all therapists are important strategies for knowledge development in occupational therapy.

This study focused on the relative utility of the model of human occupation for occupational therapy assessment of persons having mental disorders. The organizational status of the human system and its relationship to adaptive level of functioning and degree of symptomatology were examined in a sample of 30 adult psychiatric patients. We used a six-test assessment battery developed for this study, which was based on the model of human occupation, to measure the organizational status of the following components of the human system: locus of control, goals, temporal orientation, interests, roles, and skills. Subtests of the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) Adoptive Behavior Scale and the Modified Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to measure adaptive level functioning and symptomatology, respectively. When we compared organizational status with psychiatric diagnosis and symptomatology, we found organizational status to be the more significant index of adaptive level of functioning.

This study examined the empirical validity of the model of human occupation in psychosocial occupational therapy. A battery of instruments corresponding to the components of the model was administered to young adult patients with chronic conditions, patients with eating disorders, adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric disorders, and normal adults and adolescents. The only variables on which the groups did not differ significantly were the Fatalism subscale of the Internal—External Scale and the Future Meaning dimension of the Life Attitude Profile. A series of comparison regressions using ratings on each of four roles from the Role Performance Scale as criterion variables generally was more useful in explaining the performance of the group with eating disorders and less useful with the young adult group with chronic conditions. The regressions were also more useful in explaining social and productive role performance than in explaining leisure or self management role performance. In the most successful model, life purpose, self-control, existential vacuum, and family environment explained 46% of the variance in social role performance by the group with eating disorders. For young adult patients with chronic conditions, the best model—consisting of existential vacuum, past roles, self-control, family environment, and life purpose—accounted for 32% of the variance in performance of the productive (work or education) role. For the adolescents hospitalized with psychiatric disorders, skills, family environment, life purpose, and past roles accounted for 35% of the variance in social role performance.