Supporting critical thinking in occupational therapy education with the PACE model

Occupational therapy programs prepare students for professional roles that require strong critical thinking and clinical reasoning. Students must analyze information, synthesize findings, select theoretical frameworks, and justify decisions across coursework, examinations, and fieldwork preparation. These skills are foundational to safe, ethical, and effective practice. Despite the centrality of critical thinking in occupational therapy education, the cognitive processes that support its development may not always be clearly visible to students. Students may receive feedback indicating that their reasoning needs improvement, but they may require clearer guidance on how to refine their thinking.