Occupational therapists and their teaching role: perceptions of professionals and university students

Introduction: In Chile, occupational therapists have performed the academic role since 1963, increasing their presence in higher education institutions that have incorporated occupational therapy into their educational projects. Objective: To describe the perceptions of occupational therapists and students, regarding the process of acquisition and participation in the academic role within the metropolitan region of Chile. Method: Research qualitative with an exploratory-descriptive design in which occupational therapy academics and students were interviewed online, and selected in a non-probabilistic manner. 13 people participated, whose responses were analyzed in selective coding tables and categorized into 8 subcategories. Results: The motivation to transmit the values of the profession and the experiences when teaching are the main factors that professionals consider maintaining their teaching role in universities. In addition, the existence of an occupational imbalance in the areas of social participation, rest, and sleep was evidenced within the routine habits of professionals. Also, there is the precariousness of work and remuneration when maintaining the teaching role. Conclusion: Occupational therapist academics should facilitate the exploration of possibilities processes, motivating the development of skills and validating the achievements in the learning processes of the new generation of students, both in face-to-face and distance formats.


Introduction
The processes of acquiring roles and participation in occupations are aspects that can be addressed from the framework of the American Occupational Therapy Association (2020), which indicates that education training is part of the key points in the research agenda and concern for training and professional development (Díaz et al., 2020;American Occupational Therapy Association, 2011). However, Aravena et al. (2016) mention that 49% of occupational therapists (OT) who teach do not feel qualified to lead a research project, which would be reflected in the low disposition that OT students have in the processes of research, which is lower than other health careers (Maury-Sintjago et al., 2018). This situation agrees with Cruz & Pfeifer (2007) when stating that research in occupational therapy is infrequent and in many disciplinary areas, scarce (Díaz et al., 2020;López Soler et al., 2018;Ansón, 2018).
From the previous statement, the need to know the personal and environmental factors that generate and perpetuate the change in identity positioning between being an OT clinician and an OT professor from an evidence-based practice is evident. It provides judgments and better-contrasted decisions (Gonzalo et al., 2005) that allow the execution of a teaching role based on reflection, which allows the agency to make changes and improve teaching (Parra Esquivel, 2019; González Alonso et al., 2015), to positively impact the educational processes of undergraduate students, both in face-to-face and distance formats (Marchant Castillo, 2021;Marchant Castillo & Rodríguez Domínguez, 2021).
According to Suckel Gajardo et al. (2020), during undergraduate pedagogies, there are few opportunities for theoretical and practical training in which spaces are provided for the learning processes of teaching and the teaching profession. Thus, it is hypothesized that in occupational therapy there would be a similar scenario in terms of the opportunities to develop the teaching role within the education training, so knowing the motivations and subjective experiences that allowed the agency to develop the OT teaching role becomes extremely important for the development of the profession and OT trainers in a work context. In addition to being experts in their disciplines, they must transmit to other subjects the passion of knowing disciplinary knowledge (Cuesta Moreno, 2018), valuing and understanding the complexity of the learning scenarios, the interests and training motivations of future OTs (Villagra et al., 2021), while executing research activities, extension and educational management (Walker, 2020).
Similarly, it is known that the different disciplines have their specificities and, consequently, demand specific didactics (Henao-Castaño et al., 2010), demanding skills associated with the appropriation of didactic knowledge to convey disciplinary knowledge toward pedagogical knowledge with the object of complying with the educational activity (Arcaya, 2009). They have greater specificity in the subjects, contexts, and roles of the people who participate in these processes (Leinhardt, 2001). The role of the university professor in the area of health must-have qualities in the ethical aspect well defined by their professional field as such, plus respect and responsibility towards the pedagogical task (Henao-Castaño et al., 2010).
Pointing out the heterogeneity of teaching work in the university context, we can mention that it is a complex and specific social practice that is crossed by disciplinary, organizational, and other dimensions that configure material and symbolic conditions. According to Walker (2017), positioning professors in the face of demands and degrees of responsibility promote different forms of relationship with the institution and with the people with whom they interact, which finally give rise to unique ways of perceiving, feeling, and exercising the teaching role.
The participation of the teaching role by the OT has been developed since 1963 in Chile (Camazón & Jara, 2016), consolidating the 22 undergraduate educational programs within the various universities and higher education institutions (HEI) in the Metropolitan region (Mi Futuro, 2020). Although within the literature review, there were findings of national articles that talked about the participation of OTs in the university context (Dugnol-Menéndez et al., 2021;Moruno-Miralles et al., 2019;Camazón & Jara, 2016;Chaparro, 2013;Pellón Arcaya et al., 2011), these focused on teaching methodologies or their role as clinical professors, leaving aside the perceptions of the professional in their role as professors and the process to acquire and stay in this role within HEIs.
Based on the need to change these precedents, positively influence professional training (Ballarin & Toldrá, 2010), respond to OT concerns, help them transform their teaching practices (Parra Esquivel, 2019), and collaborate with the research agenda of the profession, we aimed to describe the processes of OT professors and HEI students in the process of acquisition and participation in the teaching role within the Metropolitan Region (RM) of Chile.

Method
This is qualitative research with an exploratory-descriptive design (Hernández, 2014;Hernández, Fernandez-Collado & Lucio, 2006). It was based on the richness of the subjective data that is collected in depth (Hernández et al., 2010) from the different experiences and realities of the OTs who carry out teaching and student work in the university context. The selection of the sample was of a nonprobabilistic intentional type, in which the choice was given by the characteristics that the participants presented and not by the probability that they had to be chosen (Hernández et al., 2010). For this, an invitation to participate was sent by email to OTs who teach in private and public HEIs in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. Also, participants were recruited through social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram that met the following criteria (Table 1): A questionnaire of open questions was implemented based on 3 theoretical categories from the Human Occupation Model, which encompass the concepts that allowed organizing and understanding in detail the data obtained on the perceptions of OTs within the process of acquisition and construction of the teaching role. These elements are described in Table 2.  A pedagogue with a master's degree in teaching reviewed this instrument and two OTs tested it who, although they met the inclusion requirements proposed in this study, were not considered part of the study population. This measure sought to corroborate the content validity of the questions through experts (Garrote & Rojas, 2015).
The questionnaire was applied and recorded via the Zoom virtual platform, after the authorization of the participants. This format was chosen due to the health context of Covid-19 and the recommendations for social isolation (Trilla, 2020).
The information obtained was transcribed and organized in axial matrices, a process audited by 4 master's thesis students, who supervised the classification and categorization of the emerging subcategories. Finally, the information was codified in selective matrices in which the thematic content was organized into emerging categories (Abela, 2002).
The research was approved by the ethics committee of the university where it was carried out and had the informed consent of all the participants, respecting the bioethical aspect of autonomy in voluntary participation. In addition, the confidentiality of personal data was protected, respecting the bioethical aspect of non-maleficence.

Results
A call of 13 participants was obtained, of which 3 belonged to the male gender and 10 to the female gender, without participants from the trans or non-binary community (Table 3) (Marchant Castillo, 2020a).
In this sense, as most of the testimonies come from the experiences of women, the following sections will be approached with feminine pronouns, to validate and visualize the experience of the collaborators (Marchant Castillo, 2021). Table 3. Distribution of participants.

OT professors of private HEIs
OT students from private HEIs

OT professors of public HEIs
OT students from public HEIs 2 professors of A (1m and 1w) 1 student of A (w) 1 professor of Z (m) 1 student of Z (w) 1. Role category, which according to De las Heras (2015), corresponds to the ability to do things, and the incorporation of a defined status, which can be personal or social, provided by the conditions of the physical and mental underlying objective components, and the corresponding subjective experience (Kielhofner, 2011).

a) Subcategory OT interest in teaching
From the perspective of De las Heras (2015), if we consider the role of the professor as the result of changes in the occupational life of OTs, we can observe a change in occupational status. It was especially motivated by negative experiences in the process of teaching-learning during undergraduate and personal values in the conceptualization of the degree of commitment and specialization that the OT professor should have in the training process of university students. This is reflected in the responses of some interviewed professors who indicate low satisfaction with their learning process during undergraduate studies when compared to professionals trained in other HEIs.

I feel that my education was not so good, there was information that was not given to me and I had to learn and develop by force, and when I graduated, I had experiences with other professionals who had better training.
However, these negative experiences are not limited to the transmission of concepts or theories, but also the motivation, knowledge, and identity of the discipline: Some professors were not able to explain to me very well the contributions of the OTs, they did not transmit a certain motivation to me in some areas; which marked me when starting work. When I approached teaching, I wanted to be a different professor, for the students to have several opportunities in their heads, to multiply their options.

b) Subcategory Construction of the teaching role
The construction of the OT teaching role can be explained by the pattern of active and constant participation in teaching tasks (De las Heras, 2015).
The teaching role is to mix the vision of the OT with the pedagogue, being able to recognize diversity in the classroom. I believe that the OT has everything integrated into our being.
Since, [...] as an OT, we manage to better understand the student and how he learns.
In most of the answers, the participants mentioned that the construction of the teaching role is given by the performance of tasks such as teaching, evaluating, preparing material, and researching, among many others. Evidencing the conception of research as an activity within the teaching role and not as a differentiated and specific role. Participation in training activities or education training is considered important for the interviewees since it would collaborate in a critical teaching construction that would differ from that of their formative figures.
It is important because one is self-training as a teacher, in that process, there is a self-reflection of how my teachers were, how the subjects passed me, and the academic that I want to become. I feel that when the subjects are dictated by OT, they are more practical, one can give examples that help students to ground the subject.
According to Korthagen (2010), the center of education training starts from practice towards theory, with a vision that implies the continuous interrelation between both. This is one of the difficulties that professors must address from the first year of undergraduate studies since there is a low link between theoretical knowledge and professional work. Also, a significant number of OTs are unaware of the beginning and status of the discipline in their respective countries (Lillo & Blanche, 2010).
Although the professors have the task of developing all human potentialities in the educational process (Henao-Castaño et al., 2010), being OTs who teach, they should also be concerned about the participation and performance of the educational community in the area of occupation intended for education (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2013). Thus, even exercising the teaching role, strategies should be promoted that meet the objectives of occupational therapy since; Perhaps the students are not having a good time, they are overloaded because the universities demand them as machines, which differs a bit from the role of OT.
I have had to re-motivate and give encouragement to those who are struggling with a field, that is a challenge, accompanying people who sometimes limp along the way.
This is in dialogue with what Valverde (2016) stated that some OTs will not reach the last stage of experts, not because they do not want to, but because the road ahead will be so complicated that they will refuse to do so, evidenced in the following record: I have had colleagues who have wanted to kill themselves due to overloading, one case has been me, I have wanted to kill myself.
It is important that OT professors take care of mental health and promote positive volitional processes, granting favorable experiences since they are fundamental for the students to choose to continue participating in the university context. This, contributes to the prevention of suicide, considering that 20.8% of students suffer from depressive symptoms (Pérez, 2015).
We must try to protect the occupational balance of students, their well-being and that their university experience does not become torture.
In addition, it was mentioned that apart from the teaching work, the OTs that participate in HEIs must contemplate within their tasks the: Generate inclusion in the higher education space. Being an articulator of the educational community and people with disabilities and diversity in general. Since, any university professor can generate teaching, research, and connection with the environment. However, the processes of social inclusion are a specific part of the role of OT, promoting diversity and inclusion, the OT has a role for which it can be more prepared than other professionals.
Requiring that OT professors take charge of an area that is due in HEIs, which is related to leading the educational inclusion of the diversity of the population that inhabits (or should inhabit) HEIs (Infante, 2010).
The positive volitional processes that allowed the OT professors to once again choose to participate in the educational context are rescued, even when the working conditions and salary are lower than what the OT professional could choose in a traditional context.

I would do better as OT, but teaching, I do it because I like it.
It is a challenging, difficult activity, it is an activity that demands a lot of time and can be super satisfying intellectually.
If the income profile of the professor is compared, a difference is evident with the rest of the workers, in general, the pedagogues who are self-employed earn over 100% more than those who are employed. Unlike other professionals, the variance of the labor income of the teachers is very low, which means that regardless of the professional quality, the salary is set by considerations other than performance (Mizala & Romaguera, 2000). For example, the commercial income model of HEIs (Güechá Hernández, 2018) punishes professors who are more dedicated to teaching with lower pay than those who prioritize research (Contreras et al., 2019).
In this sense, it may be that the perceptions of the collaborating professor of this proposal in their remuneration are linked to a low development in research tasks, reaffirming the introductory argument of this paper in which occupational therapy research is rare and in many disciplinary areas, scarce (Ánima et al., 2020;López Soler et al., 2018;Ansón, 2018). This would influence the salary of professors who do not feel qualified to carry out research and who do not see their effort rewarded by performance in the classroom (Mizala & Romaguera, 2000).

c) Subcategory Complexity of teaching tasks
This subcategory refers to the demands that carrying out the task implies for the professors, according to their ability and previous practice in carrying it out (De las Heras, 2015).
One is hired for face-to-face class hours, the non-face-to-face hour is not valued or ruled [...] which require more time.
In the public area, there is a reserve of hours to carry out activities, which are never enough.
It is important to be able to demonstrate the influence that the teacher's activities have on the routine habits of OTs since habits can promote or harm health (Fiese, 2007;Koome et al., 2012;Segal, 2004).
Regarding the previous statement, it can be said that the teaching work: Interferes with routine habits, in the area of rest and sleep, since one uses the time at night, until late to review and prepare for classes. Also, it affects social participation, since I have stopped participating in commitments. And this is not considered in the professor's payment.
This is the establishment of a routine, based on a role, essential for its satisfactory performance of it (Moncada et al., 2019).

I try to organize myself as best as possible, to have time to do other activities outside of work, but I don't always have enough time.
Within the testimonies, three important elements can be highlighted that are related to the high demand for the time that being a teacher entails, influencing the time available for the optimal performance of basic activities of daily life, payments that are granted for performing the role, which is directly related to the type of contract to which each teacher is subscribed:

You have to recognize the difference between hiring and the type of view teachers have, sometimes they hire you for the 4 hours of class, and only that, that is job insecurity.
I would like it to be better evaluated economically. It seems to me that it should be a much better-paid function, because of the time it takes and because basically, it is much more difficult to teach than other things that OT does, so there should be better economic recognition so that one tends to do those things.
Finally, public HEIs would have better mechanisms to protect the working conditions of professors because: In the public sphere, they pay you for vacations, even when classes are over, there is space to make material and share with students and colleagues.

While in private HEIs:
There were many more functions. She completed hours of classes, participated in the accreditation process, reviewed academic issues in the curriculum, reviewed the mission, vision, and study plans, and was also in charge of liaison with the environment, in which the school contacts the community and vice versa, carrying out certain activities such as seminars and others, out of teaching hours.
2. Performance capacity category, which corresponds to the relationship of musculoskeletal, neurological, perceptual-emotional, and cognitive phenomena, which result in basic capacities of the body and mind, and in the unique perception of these (De las Heras, 2015, p. 34). d) Subcategory Teaching ability and performance Among the skills, the interviewees agree that processing skills would be the most significant when developing the teaching role.
[...] the most important and the most difficult to master are the skills of organization, adaptation, and flexibility, which may be obvious, but not all professors have them so well developed.
Regarding the technical aspect, to teach at the university in the health area, training in the teaching role would not be requested, but rather a master's degree in any disciplinary area would be enough. This situation is a problem because training in methodological skills, planning, and management of teaching, and innovation that every professor must manage is invisible (Torra Bitlloch et al., 2012;Mas Torelló, 2011).
Even though there are no formal requirements in education training, all of the interviewees have taken training courses during the exercise of the role, which was facilitated by the HEIs in which they work. In addition, they refer to interest in continuing to learn and improving their occupational performance in the teaching role.
Regarding postgraduate studies, in private HEIs, only two interviewees have studies in university teaching; a diploma and master respectively, while the interviewee from the public HEI does not have postgraduate education, but would like to do a diploma in university teaching.
According to the interviewees, within the occupational therapy undergraduate training, the OT would acquire different skills that would facilitate the optimal fulfillment of their teaching work. However, it is important to highlight that formal education, as a professor, is necessary to responsibly execute the pedagogical task (Henao-Castaño et al., 2010), contributing to the formation of a professional identity (Souto-Gómez et al., 2020): I feel that OTs have tools or are trained in strategies that contribute to the teaching methodology. These can be given to training in mental health, adaptation strategies, activities, etc.
The students mentioned difficulties in applying the knowledge of their professors. However, they recognized their abilities in teaching.
They have strengths and skills to be able to teach you, most of them are very theoretical, but they need to apply.
Another of the shortcomings to improve has to do with the area of research and the collection of scientific disciplinary evidence.

The evidence is still weak in our profession, it is important to continue developing it to transmit it to other professionals.
The students report that the performance of the OT professors is good, based on the motivation they transmit and the soft skills that the professionals can express. From the perspective of Mas Torelló (2011) and Torra Bitlloch et al. (2012), we can mention that OT professors would perform well in their communication and interpersonal skills.
I think the performance is good because most of them have a good disposition. You can always contact them by mail.
However, there are obvious technical deficiencies that need to be improved: You can see that they are not professors, there are pedagogical weaknesses, which one recognizes as a student. Some read the power and others explain. It is also reflected in how they take the tests and how they evaluate. They should value practicality over memorization.
3. Category environmental factors, which include the physical, social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics of the personal contexts that impact the motivation, organization, and performance capacity of the person (De las Heras, 2015).

e) Influence of social groups on the teaching role
Although positive and pleasant sensations were identified that the exercise of the teaching role grants to the professionals, there were testimonies that described sensations of nervousness, insecurity, and anxiety on the part of the OTs when teaching other subjects and participating with new students, or when having to cover subjects that are not fully mastered. These experiences have often made the professionals want to leave the role, even though they have experience in it.
In addition, it is prudent to expose the positive experiences of the professors with the educational establishment, specifically the relationship with the administrative staff. Since these would facilitate the teaching work and with it, the positive experiences when exercising the role: The administrative staff [...] are always willing to help, they guide you and give opportunities to non-teaching professionals. They remind you of things like signing the class book and uploading your grades. They make your process more bearable, so you worry about just doing classes. This role has a positive impact on those of us who are teachers.
Another aspect to consider in this subcategory corresponds to the experiences of the students since this social group develops expectations (demands) of performance in the teaching role that should be fulfilled so that they can commit and participate optimally in the educational context. Within these demands, negative experiences can be seen in their educational process, since there would be little participation of OT in first-year subjects, transversal, and research branches, making it difficult for them to visualize the work of OT in the various work contexts in which they participate.

My methodology teacher doesn't take anything from OT. In the title seminar, I have a professor who is not an OT, and she grades you poorly because she doesn't even know that she is an occupational therapist.
Regarding this testimony, we can appreciate the negative influence of a non-OT professor on the academic and educational performance of an OT student.
Also, it is important to note that within the experiences of the students, two pointed out difficulties based on issues of sexuality, mentioning sexist practices and the scant sanction given to teachers who, allegedly, are accused of sexual harassment in the course and continue to participate in the same context as the students. Markers of difference associated with gender are identified, which are based on the heteronormative social construction, where the heterosexual man is at the top of a hierarchy, above the woman (Galaz et al., 2016), giving rise to a strange phenomenon, since occupational therapy is a feminized discipline (Mayorga & Jiménez, 2020) in which 80% of the OT registered in the Health Superintendence in 2012 correspond to the female gender (Mansilla Rivera et al., 2017).
Regarding this background, it is clear the negative influence that the professor can have on the performance of the students that could generate occupational maladjustment in the university context (Marchant Castillo, 2019) and reproduce conditions of inequality against gender. This would establish a type of teaching role that would go against the characteristics that a good teacher should have (Henao-Castaño et al., 2010) that respects ethical principles in university teaching (Murray, 1996).

f) Subcategory Opportunities for teaching
From the social environment, the exploration of the teaching role is facilitated for undergraduate students, through assistance to professors or in assistantship programs or accompaniment to new students, which is positive when thinking about strengthening the role as a professor during undergraduate. For the learning processes of teaching and the teaching profession to be carried out, spaces must be facilitated (Suckel Gajardo et al., 2020). However, the high educational demand and high levels of stress (Blanco et al., 2012), prevent OT students from exercising the teaching role in these assistantship programs, with an important relationship between academic stress and occupational performance, which has an unsatisfactory impact on students at a physical, psychological and behavioral level (Blanco et al., 2012): There are many jobs, so there is not even time to lend or give summaries.
Regarding the opportunities of the professionals to teach, most of them refer to having participated in the teaching role after having been tutors in clinical fields or guides in practical activities, which dialogues with what the students referred to in the fact that during the undergraduates do not have time to participate in these opportunities or simply did not exist such opportunities within their training processes. g) Subcategory Influence of the educational project on the teaching role Regarding the information obtained, we can mention that the educational projects proposed by the HEIs influence and define the teaching role of the OTs, since they must fulfill the tasks, modify methods and limit their demands to what is described in the graduation profiles and the participation requirements of each university, regardless of its status (public or private), since each one has a different view of OT training, in which the professional may or may not complement this view.
The demand changes according to the course and the University, which makes your role change and it has to do with the graduate profile, so there are things that you cannot demand of them. For example, a command of English or an investigative profile. So, you lower what you can demand of them and that has an influence, makes you modify your methods.
Although HEIs grant guidelines to OTs to optimally fulfill the teaching role, including training opportunities, schedules are not safeguarded and professors are not paid for carrying out such training, being developed voluntarily (Mas Torelló, 2012) and outside of business hours. In addition, these guidelines may not be fully compatible with the values and interests of professionals, generating discomfort and limiting their actions when carrying out their work, which in turn influences the students, limiting their interest in developing the role of the future professor: Many professors mention that from above they force them to be mean, the professors try to do something, but they can't.
h) Influence of physical spaces and objects on the teaching role Regarding the information obtained, it can be seen how the physical environment impacts the teaching role in different ways, evoking participation, attention, and maximum performance (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikzentmihaly, 1990;Kiernat, 1983;Lawton & Nahemow, 1973) or boredom and disinterest (Kiernat, 1983), anxiety or hopelessness (Kielhofner, 2011). The objects are considered important to develop the work of the OT professor because they require specific elements oriented to professional praxis, such as sensory integration implements and materials for orthoses. Also, the general elements such as computers and the internet signal, to be able to make the presentations in the teaching-learning session. Based on this, we can mention that the performance of OT professors is diminished since they lose time participating in the role by having to collect the necessary objects to carry out their teaching work.
According to the interviewees, the spaces provide negative experiences, both for professors and students; In the end, the physical environment determines the comfort for the student to maintain attention. I don't like the rooms at u, they're uncomfortable, they're small, it's difficult to address the audience, it's uncomfortable.
Evidencing a negative appreciation of the work space inside and outside the classroom: I think there has been a precariousness in recent years of the teacher's space [...] The workspace is lost.

Discussion
According to Henao-Castaño et al. (2010) in the training of professionals in the health area, a professor is required who claims teaching as a profession, who in addition to knowledge of the subject has specific knowledge for the level at which he works, being able to transmit knowledge with diverse didactics, of those that characterize the good professor. However, according to the testimonies of the students, the OTs that teach still need to strengthen the role from technical aspects, which is significant to consider since the students are producers of knowledge, which must be recognized and validated (Valderrama, 2019). Based on this, a record was obtained that the current professors were not motivated by their undergraduate professors in the profession for which they were helped to train (Zabalza, 2016), so they have sought to claim the teaching role and develop it based on the shortcomings of their instructors, which is appreciated and recognized by the students.
Berrueta Maeztu et al. (2008) stated that HEIs are demanding OT professors with a vocation, reflective, exploratory, creative, cooperative, and with projects for the future, who handle didactic knowledge since these are the most important part of teaching knowledge (Gudmundsdottir, 1990). In this way, it is expected that professors can improve their levels of competence regarding research. For this, Perea (2000) mentions that they should approach a methodology that helps them learn to learn and direct practice towards the acquisition of scientific concepts through accredited training (Zabalza, 2016).
It is necessary that the OTs that teach meet the demands of the universities and are technically trained in teaching and the corresponding tasks. However, it is important to highlight what González-Palacios et al. (2021) say professors work with high intensity and very limited times, requiring activities to be carried out after hours to respond to the demands of their work. This supports the findings obtained in this research and invites us to reflect on the occupational balance of university professors and to value the effort of professors and their abilities to adapt to the various demands that are presented to them (Marchant Castillo, 2021), being able to be paid for their performance in the classroom and not only for their academic productivity.

CONCLUSIONS
Regarding the information obtained, we can affirm that the objective of this research was fully fulfilled since it was possible to describe the perceptions of OTs that carry out teaching tasks and of students of 7 HEIs regarding the process of acquisition and participation in the teaching role within the RM of Chile. Although the sample was heterogeneous and scarcely representative, it was possible to show similarities in the reports of the OT professor on the various topics addressed.
Regarding the processes of acquisition of the teaching role of the OT, we conclude that the interest in teaching appears in childhood and is strengthened under unsatisfactory volitional processes during undergraduate. These factors have motivated to avoid the reproduction of negative experiences and the low personal causality of the students and future professionals regarding the non-compliance with the demands of the teaching role, having to transmit the identity and professional practices from the first year of the degree, in general subjects and essentially in research processes and academic production, since that the students require the professional to accompany and comply with the disciplinary specificities of the process, granting positive experiences to the student body.
Regarding the participation of the teaching role, the undervalued vision of research stands out, which is reduced to a task within the teaching role and not as a role that is developed in parallel. Also, we found that educational management and administration tasks are the least significant activities for professionals and those that require the greatest amount of time, while interest and subjective experiences when teaching in the classroom are key factors for a change in the positioning of the identity of clinical OT is achieved and the occupational adaptation of the role of the professor in HEIs is perpetuated.
It is important to highlight that, for the most part, the professors mentioned environmental factors as negative, both the physical space and the objects for carrying out the teaching work, which is added to organizational elements such as the precariousness of fee contracts, since that do not consider paid vacations, non-teaching activities, or health benefits. The salaries do not correspond to the hours that the OT allocates to develop the teaching role, being well below what they could obtain in clinical praxis. These elements have a negative influence on the routine habits of OT professors, generating an occupational imbalance in the areas of social participation and rest, and sleep.
Another significant finding is the scarce approach that the professors have with the students in the area of sexuality, evidencing macho and hostile environments in which figures of power are maintained that negatively impact the participation and occupational performance of the students (Marchant Castillo, 2022, 2020b. This is significant since occupational therapy is, for the most part, carried out by cisgender women in the roles of professors and students, and in which most male students move away from the hegemonic model of masculinity (Mayorga & Jiménez, 2020), which invites us to review the diversity of teaching profiles that teach in the various HEIs.
Finally, it should be considered that being an OT and a professor, one should develop ethically and responsibly in both roles, seeking to obtain the best possible performance, through the use of the best strategies, didactics, and technological tools, according to the needs and to the forms of learning presented by the new generations of students, positively influencing the mental health of young people and adults, preventing complex situations such as low personal causality, harassment or sexual abuse and high levels of stress, which can guide students to opt for career abandonment or fatal measures such as suicide. This facilitates exploration processes, motivating the development of skills and validating achievements in learning processes, based on respect for human rights and personal characteristics, which define each participant in the educational community as a unique being in the world, whether or not they comply with gender stereotypes.l