A Scholarship of Practice: Creating Discourse Between Theory,Research and Practice

SUMMARY

Occupational therapy has experienced a tremendous growth both of theory and research. However, there is little evidence that this renaissance of knowledge has been paralleled by changes in practice. Instead, academics tend to express concern that practice lags behind scholarship while clinicians bemoan the irrelevance of theory and research to their everyday work. This paper discusses the scholarship of practice. This approach is based on the assumption that those who ultimately will use the knowledge must be partners in its generation. Thus, it emphasizes cooperative efforts in which practitioners and scholars work together as partners to advance both knowledge and practice.