The Wizard of OT

OT education with courage, heart, and brains.

Heather Miller Kuhaneck, PhD OTR/L

April 8, 2026

If belonging is the soil of learning, trust is the water.

We often design beautiful curricula, build active learning experiences, and align everything to standards—but if students don’t trust us, none of it fully lands. Trust is the quiet, often invisible force that determines whether students take risks, admit confusion, and ultimately grow.

In occupational therapy education—where vulnerability, reflection, and human connection are central—trust isn’t optional. It’s foundational.

What Is Trust in Educational Relationships?

Trust in education refers to a student’s belief that their instructor is competent, fair, honest, and genuinely invested in their success. It includes both interpersonal trust (do you care about me?) and instructional trust (do you know what you’re doing, and will you support my learning?).

Trust in educational settings is often described as having five key components:

  • Benevolence (you care about me)
  • Reliability (you do what you say)
  • Competence (you know your stuff)
  • Honesty (you are truthful and transparent)
  • Openness (you are approachable and willing to listen)

In OT terms? Trust is what allows a student to say, “I don’t understand this,” or “I made a mistake,”—which is exactly where real learning begins.

Why Does Trust Matter? (What the Research Says)

The evidence is clear: trust is not a “nice to have”—it is directly tied to learning outcomes.

1. Trust enhances student engagement and motivation

Research by John Hattie shows that teacher-student relationships have an effect (effect size d = 0.52) on student achievement, well above many commonly used instructional strategies. When students trust their instructor, they are more likely to participate, persist, and invest effort.

2. Psychological safety drives deeper learning

Psychological safety is a space where individuals feel safe to take interpersonal risks. In classrooms, this translates to students asking questions, engaging in discussion, and tolerating ambiguity.  All critical for learning clinical reasoning in OT. Without trust, students may default to performance over learning, leading to hiding mistakes instead of learning from them.

3. Trust supports risk-taking and professional identity formation

OT education requires students to try, fail, reflect, and try again. Studies in health professions education emphasize that development from novice to expert depends on guided participation in uncertain situations.  This may be something students will only engage in when trust is present.

4. Perceived instructor care impacts learning climate

Research shows that students’ perception that instructors care about them is strongly associated with positive classroom climate, persistence, and satisfaction.

How Do We Build Trust as Faculty?

Here’s the part that matters most for practice because trust is not built through personality alone. It is built through intentional behaviors.

1. Be predictably human

Students don’t need perfection but they do need consistency.

  • Follow through on what you say
  • Admit when you don’t know something
  • Share appropriate vulnerability (e.g., clinical mistakes you learned from)

2. Design for psychological safety from day one

Trust isn’t built mid-semester—it’s established immediately.

  • Normalize confusion: “This is hard, and that’s expected.”
  • Use low-stakes participation early (think-pair-share, polling)
  • Explicitly frame mistakes as part of learning

3. Practice “warm demander” teaching (see prior blog post on this topic Aug 27, 25)

This concept is gold for OT education:

  • Hold high expectations
  • Communicate deep belief in students’ ability to meet them

This is trust-building in action:  “I believe in you enough to challenge you—and support you.”

4. Be transparent about the “why”

Students trust what they understand.

  • Explain why assignments exist (tie to practice, ACOTE standards, real clients)
  • Share grading criteria clearly (your specs grading model is perfect for this)
  • Make expectations visible and predictable

Transparency reduces anxiety and increases perceived fairness.

5. Listen like an occupational therapist

This is your secret weapon.

  • Use active listening in student interactions
  • Reflect back what you hear
  • Validate without immediately fixing

You’re modeling therapeutic use of self (TUOS) and building trust simultaneously (see below about relational pedagogy).

6. Respond to mistakes with coaching, not judgment

Nothing destroys trust faster than punitive reactions to errors.

Instead:

  • Ask: “Walk me through your thinking”
  • Provide specific, actionable feedback
  • Frame errors as data, not deficits

This is especially critical in competency-based models.

Trust and Relational Pedagogy

To build trust, consider adopting relational pedagogy. Relational pedagogy has been defined as “an organic process that is responsive to the needs and desires of learners, with relationships, interactions, and community at the heart of this pedagogy” (Adams, 2018, p. 61). It is an intentional sharing of power in the educational experience, with specific reflective faculty practices. 

Relational pedagogies put at the core of education, the encounter between students and faculty. The encounter is the process of knowledge production. Both faculty and students must reflect upon these encounters in relation to learning and must consider the ethics and dynamics that are at work in the space or gap between students and faculty. In implementing relational pedagogy, there are many contextual barriers to be managed. Qualitative research (Bunting et al, 2025) suggests that faculty must carefully consider their role as “guardians” of an education that students pay for, in particular when grading student performance. They must also consider the contextual features of education in a system for profit, such as the potential for larger class sizes, that may hinder their ability to get to truly know their students. 

However, our skill as OTs, with therapeutic use of self (TUOS), may help occupational therapy educators in their pursuit of relational pedagogy. These specific aspects of TUOS may be specifically relevant to OT education:

  • respect for all humans – dignity and rights 
  • empathy 
  • compassion
  • humility
  • positive regard
  • honesty
  • flexibility 
  • self-awareness
  • humor
  • communication

In OT education, practicing TUOS allows faculty to exist with students as real people, who can make mistakes and who are still learning as well.  Being vulnerable in our educational spaces, and taking the time to create meaningful connections allows faculty and students  at least the opportunity to truly collaborate.  In “doing” relational pedagogy faculty recognize the student and signal the student that faculty care and value the student. The social emotional foundations and trust that results supports students’ development. 

In this complex world in which we live, it is critical that our OT education assists students to become critical thinkers and creative agents of change. We may foster their growth by using relational, inclusive, and democratic approaches to education, while of course taking into account the context of learning in higher ed.  

Conclusion

Trust is not an “extra” in education. It is the mechanism that makes everything else work. In OT education, where we are asking students to be vulnerable, to reflect, to engage in therapeutic use of self, and to step into uncertainty, trust becomes even more essential. Without it, students perform. With it, they transform. The good news is that trust is not mysterious or out of our control. It is built, intentionally, through our daily interactions, our course design, our feedback, and our presence with students. When we lead with consistency, transparency, and genuine care, we create learning environments where students feel safe enough to take risks and strong enough to grow. And that’s where real learning lives.

Resources and References

  • Adams, K. L. (2018). Relational pedagogy in higher education [Doctoral dissertation, University of Oklahoma]. (see https://shareok.org/bitstreams/1f462435-f44a-43fa-aa07-231d9d426f8f/download)
  • Anderson, V., Rabello, R., Wass, R., Golding, C., Rangi, A., Eteuati, E., Bristowe, Z., & Waller, A. (2020). Good teaching as care in higher education. Higher Education, 79(1), 1–19. doi.org/ 10.1007/s10734-019-00392-6
  • Benner, P. (1984). From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice. Addison-Wesley.
  • Bhardwaj, V., Zhang, S., Tan, Y. Q., & Pandey, V. (2025). Redefining learning: student-centered strategies for academic and personal growth. In Frontiers in Education (10,). 
  • Bryk & Schnieder (2003). Trust in schools: A core resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60 (6).
  • Bunting, K., Meyer, B., Janzen, K., Lieberman, G., Willick, K., & Davis, J. A. (2025). Therapeutic-use-of-self as relational pedagogy in occupational therapy education: A qualitative description study. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 92(2), 102-112.
  • Demerath, P., Kemper, S., Yousuf, E., & Banwo, B. (2022). A Grounded Model of How Educators Earn Students’ Trust in a High Performing U.S. Urban High School. The Urban Review, 54(5), 703–732. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-022-00635-4
  • Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
  • Felten, P., Forsyth, R., & Sutherland, K. A. (2023). Building trust in the classroom: A conceptual model for teachers, scholars, and academic developers in higher education. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 11.
  • Gravett, K., Taylor, C. A., & Fairchild, N. (2021). Pedagogies of mattering: Re-conceptualising relational pedagogies in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 29(2), 388–340. doi. org/10.1080/13562517.2021.1989580
  • Haertl, K. (2008). From the roots of psychosocial practice-therapeutic use of self in the classroom: Practical applications for occupational therapy faculty. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, 24(2), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/01642120802055168
  • Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge.
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  • Hickey, A., & Riddle, S. (2024). Proposing a conceptual framework for relational pedagogy: pedagogical informality, interface, exchange and enactment. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 28(13), 3271–3285. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2023.2259906
  • Gratz, E., & Looney, L. (2025). What’s Trust Got to Do With It? Interpersonal and Institutional Trust in University Faculty. New Directions for Higher Education.
  • Riddle, S. (2022). Schooling for democracy in a time of global crisis: Towards a more caring, inclusive and sustainable future. Routledge.
  • Su, F., & Wood, M. (2023). Relational pedagogy in higher education: What might it look like in practice and how do we develop it? International Journal for Academic Development, 28(2), 230–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2023.2164859
  • Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, W. K. (2000). A multidisciplinary analysis of the nature, meaning, and measurement of trust. Review of Educational Research, 70(4), 547–593.
  • Wilson, S. M., Pianta, R. C., & Stuhlman, M. (2007). Teacher-child relationships and engagement. Journal of School Psychology, 45(3), 245–265. 

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