Learning Intranet - Awards and Grants

Nurse graduate employment has been declining in recent years due to a Department of Health freeze on employment of registered nurses. This has made the graduate program application process extremely competitive (The West Australian, 25 March 2019). Anecdotally, the majority of ECU nursing graduates who apply for graduate programs are called for interview upon application; however, following the interview process, the most are unsuccessful in securing a place. This issue identifies a greater need for the School of Nursing & Midwifery (SNM) to not only prepare career ready graduates, but to further assist nursing students to develop their employability skills in preparation for the application and interview process. The SNM seeks to support an increase in graduate employment to align with State levels.

This project seeks to enhance implementation of a nursing employability framework throughout the Bachelor of Science (Nursing) curriculum to embed the teaching and learning of employability skills. Further, PebblePad will promote technology enhanced integration of WIL assessment with the development of employability skills. The PebblePad application will build upon the established PebblePad e-portfolio to capture WIL assessment and evidence of nursing practice performance. Functionality will be built in to facilitate students’ compilation and presentation of evidence against the Registered Nurse Standards for Practice. This project will see an embedded coursewide program of education delivered to students to prepare them for the employability challenges they face and are required to manage in their final year of study.

This project is part of a larger project across the School of Education, School of Medical and Health Science and School of Science. The work extends on previous work within the School of Education that involved Primary pre-service teachers.

The project aims to identify the most opportune time for intervention to assist students stay with their course. Previous research has identified the role of early assessment in retention by providing students with early feedback that increases their confidence.

This current research is based in Transformational Learning Theory (TLT) and intends to identify at what point students realise what they have to do to be successful (their own definition of success) at university and what supports assisted them with this transformation. It provides a theoretical basis for understanding the First Year Experience which has been described as atheoretical.

Interviews at Weeks eight and 13 will be employed to uncover the stages of TLT that students have experienced and to obtain student recommendations as to what would have supported them better in their transition to university.

The outcomes of this research will inform First Year Coordinators in Early Childhood Education, in other streams of the School of Education, and across the University.

Universities have historically underperformed against their obligations to Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” (Universities Australia, 2017, p. 10) and, whilst some progress has been made, there are still notable barriers to participation and retention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to participate in Higher Education (Altman, Young, & Lamontagne, 2017). There is still a lack of significant progress in the last decade to the Federal government’s 2008 recommendation that “Indigenous knowledge should be embedded into the curriculum to ensure that all students have an understanding of Indigenous culture” (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008, p. 33). Not surprisingly, these two findings are interrelated because as Altman, Young and Lamontagne (2017, p. 31) note, “when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and perspectives are not included in the curriculum, this can emphasise that these knowledges are not important or relevant”.

This project seeks to address this important issue in the context of the School of Business and Law’s Sport, Recreation and Event Management program – with wider relevance to other disciplinary contexts. It builds directly on the peer reviewed and published work of the Project leader (see Young, Sibson & Maguire, 2017) which provides a critical reflection of the existing state of embedded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural competence in this program.

Specifically, this project will:

* identify what type of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural content, knowledges and perspectives to embed;

* produce a course map for the program showing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curricula across units and levels;

* revise ULOs, content, assessment items and activities accordingly;

* produce dissemination activities for scaling results to other disciplinary programs.

In Australia, international students, most of whom have English as an additional language, comprise a significant proportion of enrolments in coursework programs [1]. Students studying Engineering courses are no exception, and require rapid acculturation into the Australian academic culture, necessitating the development of linguistic skills, academic literacies, and professional communication skills to thrive both academically and professionally. Therefore, timely, contextualised interventions that address these communication challenges are an important mandate for universities, with fully integrated (embedded) support being acknowledged as the pinnacle of the language development continuum [2].

In this project, we intend to review the effectiveness of existing communication skills development in the Master of Engineering (Petroleum specialisation) course, evaluate strategies to improve students’ communication skills, and propose the embedding of new activities into this course to develop students’ written communication skills and academic literacies. In particular, we intend to:

* conduct a comprehensive literature review to investigate techniques for improving engineering students’ communication skills,

* consult with industry partners to understand industry expectations and the acceptable level of communication skills of Petroleum Engineering graduates,

* review course learning outcomes and relevant assessments that are intended to demonstrate the required communication skills,

* identify and refine assessment tasks in specific units where communication skills will be

developed and assured.

Graded Exercise Stress Tests (GESTs) are an essential tool used by exercise physiologists to evaluate patient heart health and prescribe rehabilitative exercise. Understanding, interpreting and communicating the different pathological cardiac conditions that are exposed during GESTs, is crucial for exercise treatment and can reduce patient deaths.

GEST training is typically conducted through live simulation experiences which are highly resource­ intensive and unable to reflect actual clinical cases, as the majority of patient actors are asymptomatic. This limits Accredited Exercise Physiology students' clinical decision-making abilities and communication skills under realistic and critical conditions.

Virtual reality technology provides a means of delivering reliable and immersive simulated experiences that can engage and enhance student learning. We propose to conduct a formative study to consult with appropriate experts and develop prototypes towards a VR platform which simulates GESTs. This platform would provide students the ability to experience a variety of GEST conditions, build expertise in clinical interpretation and effective discipline specific communication of results to patients and ultimately enhance patient health outcomes.

Psychology/Criminology graduates will enter careers where they will need to make quick decisions about how to deal with challenging situations in the most effective and culturally appropriate way (Dudgeon & Fielder, 2006; Wain, Sim, Bessarab, Mak, Hayward, Rudd, 2016). This requires more than ‘learning about’ because students need to learn how to discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance their skills (Ruge & McCormack, 2017). Assessments that are personally meaningful, relevant and connected are most likely to drive deep learning that leads to enhanced employability and future career success (Asikainen & Gijbels, 2017; Biggs, 1988; Priniski, et al., 2018).

This project will evaluate the impact of assessment redesign on students’ ability to interpret highly complex contexts and identify appropriate responses and tools to most effectively deal with a particular situation. The redesign comprises the whole assessment regime in the unit, including feedback processes, with the aim of increasing coherence and connectivity, both within the unit and externally, to students’ present and future lives. New assessments are scaffolded to reinforce skill acquisition that will maximise the confidence of students to develop their evaluative judgement through self, peer and teacher feedback.

This project will determine the impact of the redesigned assessment regime on student engagement and learning through assessment task surveys and data on learning outcomes.

Authentic Assessment in Undergraduate Psychology: Some thinking is needed

Assessment forms a critical step in higher education yet poses challenges to implement effectively. Both the Tertiary Education Standards Quality Agency (TESQA) and Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) call for a new understanding of assessment as a central element to quality initial teacher education programs. Fundamental to effective assessment in higher education is how it improves student learning through assessment 'for learning' rather than 'of learning' (Jackel, Pearce, Radloff and Andrews   2017).

Assessment frames how students learn and what they achieve, it also has a significant impact on the quality of learning in tertiary institutions and pre-service teachers' experience of higher education (Baud and Associates 2010). Less than 10 per cent of student time is spent on non-assessable activities which means assessment has the power to drive learning and, as such, presents a significant entry point for reform (Kearney   2013).

By engaging students in assessment processes both through designing the task and identifying the marking criteria, this assessment for learning may be more authentic and meaningful. The process of sustained assessment (Baud, 2015) where the tasks are designed to build on one-another and close the 'feedback loop' may also be beneficial in the improvement in assessment processes.

Previous assessment of clinical skills in NPP2201 occurred at end of semester Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) of one skill only.  However, evidence from ECU nursing students and research literature demonstrates that OSCE are associated with higher levels of stress (Brannick, 2013) that impair the learning available through other activities (Brand & Schoonheim-Klein, 2009).  The focus on technical skills and perceived inauthenticity of the testing environment often results in rote learning at the expense of critical thinking. Industry has also requested that students be better prepared for placement. Continuing clinical assessment (CCA) was trialled in 2018 and is continuing in 2019 because of its success. Two academics are present in workshops to formatively assess students each week, foster development of abilities or identify students requiring remediation.  These learning-centred asessments occur throughout semester, instead of one at the end.  In UTEI results students acknowledged they worked harder knowing they were being assessed continually. A survey in 2018 revealed that 99% of students prefer CCA over OSCE because they are learning the skills at a deeper level and feel better prepared for clinical placement and their career as registered nurses. This project will formally review CCA to validate its continued use and possible roll out to other units in the Bachelor of Science (Nursing).

In 2018, Dr Christina Gray led a review of assessment practices in the secondary education program with guidance and assistance from Dr Catherine Moore. The outcomes from the review revealed a need to improve the consistency and comparability of grading practices and to highlight the role of high quality criterion and standards-referenced marking rubrics to support academic achievement standards and quality assurance (Sadler, 2017). The process will involve assessment conversations with Unit Coordinators in the Secondary Education Program, helping them to meet the challenge of implementing the new Assessment Policy and Procedures (Adie & Willis, 2016), while embedding external referencing of standards (Sefcik, et al., 2017). The project will explore disciplinary norms and grading approaches with respect to norm-referencing versus standards-referencing, as well as the role played by professional judgement and the use of tacit knowledge in marking (Bloxham & Boyd, 2012; McGrath, 2016).

This project will lead to the development of appropriate resources and professional learning to assist secondary unit coordinators develop criterion and standards-referenced marking guides for summative assessments. This will assist to safeguard standards and assure quality by building staff assessment literacy and systematising processes for articulating and documenting standards (Bloxham, 2012).

Effective feedback is important for student success (Hattie, 2009). Giving students opportunities to provide feedback to peers can improve student learning without increasing lecturer workload (Nicol, 2013). Peer-review leads to an improvement in students’ ability to judge and improve their own work (Boud, 2015). Peer-review also develops students’ employability skills: critical thinking; collaboration; sensitive and constructive communication. It supports independent, self-regulated learning. Students demonstrate increased ability to provide constructive feedback; avoid common writing errors; and experience exposure to different ideas and perspectives (Moore & Teather, 2013).

HST3100 is a 3rd year Health Science unit, and also an elective for Education students majoring in Health/Physical Education or Home Economics. The ability to provide effective feedback is an important employability skill for both student cohorts. Previous UTEI feedback indicated students were unsure about assessment requirements and felt that feedback was unclear. As part of the continuous quality improvement cycle, and with a particular focus on enhancing graduates’ employability, peer-review processes were embedded in semester 1, 2019. Students were taught how to conduct a peer-review and then reviewed a peer’s draft. The purpose of this grant is to evaluate this assessement-design reform. Ethics approval has been granted.

Melissa Danks, Harriet Mills, Tina Fleming, Ruchi Permvattana

Professional Science Essentials (SCI1125) is a core first year unit in ten of the 14 undergraduate courses offered by the School of Science. This includes courses from both the Discipline of Science and the Discipline of Computing and Security. UTEI and student success data from this unit in 2017 suggested that changes needed to be made to improve student engagement in the unit. Changes made in 2018 and 2019 have significantly improved student satisfaction and success in SCI1125 especially for on campus students. These changes include video interviews with employers about the importance of communication skills in science workplaces and increasing assessment topics to cater for the increasingly diverse cohort of students. Student satisfaction and success for off campus students has also increased but there are still relatively high levels of attrition and failure for this cohort of students.

This project proposes the development of online material specifically aimed at increasing engagement and success of off campus students in SCI1125. In particular, a research project will be carried out that tracks the impact of improvements made to the online learning materials for off campus students. These materials will include videos made by off campus tutors that focus on explaining the assessment items, introductory and contextual material provided by the unit coordinator and material to increase engagement in discussion boards and weekly tasks.

The assessment and task related video content is directly aligned to the School of Science’s First Year in Focus project running in 2018/19.

Does the Masters of Paramedic Practitioner meet industry expectations nationally and internationally: A benchmarking exercise in an emerging paramedic specialist course

Following the announcement of professional registration for paramedics in 2018, the Master of Paramedic Practice was separated into two specialty degrees: Masters of Paramedic Practitioner and Critical Care Paramedicine. Critical Care is an established role in most ambulance services in Australia/New Zealand (ANZ), however Extended Care Paramedics (ECP) are an emerging speciality. In ANZ, six ambulance services employ the extended clinical role of ECP, however, no national standardisation of skills exists across employers. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) has an established core capabilities framework for the role of an extended care paramedic in primary and urgent care settings and is considered gold standard. As an emerging area in ANZ and a course that is continuing to grow annually, benchmarking the current core capabilities of ECP’s within our ambulance services against the established core capabilities framework for this role within the NHS is essential for continuous course improvement.

The aim of the proposed project is to map the capabilities of ANZ ECP’s against the NHS core capabilities framework. This information will be used to improve the quality of course viability and rationale, curriculum design, reputation and course learning outcomes and lead to external benchmarking in the future.

Studies have shown that students often do not have the digital literacy skills needed to effectively evaluate online information or the digital literacy skills needed for today’s workplace (Deloitte Access Economics, 2017; Hargittai, Fullerton, Menchen-Trevino, & Thomas, 2010; Stanford History Education Group, 2016). Universities in Australia are starting to evolve their current information literacy frameworks and courses to adapt to the ever changing digital world and equip their students with the digital literacy skills needed to succeed at university and in their future work lives. At ECU introductory modules such as SLIDE and library essentials have been developed and Schools such as the School of Business and Law have done research and implemented digital literacy approaches.

The aim of the project is to benchmark these generic and School specific modules against two universities currently offering online digital literacy modules, both generic and embedded. The aim is then to update and expand current generic modules to include new more advanced modules and assessment elements in collaboration with CLT and schools that can be embedded into the curriculum of specific units and courses. Several universities including Deakin University and the University of Queensland have been at the forefront of developing digital literacy frameworks and modules and this project aims to use benchmarking as an integral step towards developing a university wide strategy for digital literacy at ECU.

Undergraduate laboratory classes provide an important hands-on learning opportunity for students at ECU. They are often reported in UTEI surveys as being one of the most enjoyable elements of the student journey, providing a tool to convey complex topics and to help students develop their critical thinking skills. The move to the new SuperLab environment will provide even greater teaching opportunities, but also some new logistical obstacles that will need to be overcome to ensure our teaching is still effective and engaging. One such hurdle is to ensure students are adequately prepared for laboratory classes. Currently, tutors gather students around a central bench to demonstrate tasks or equipment, something that will not be feasible in the SuperLab environment.

We propose to introduce “flipped” activities to SuperLab units, utilizing first person view (FPV) technology to capture demonstration videos, which will be accompanied by pre-lab tasks that students should complete on Blackboard before coming to class. The use of pre-lab tasks in other fields at other institutions has been shown to decrease student anxiety, increase student understanding and increase the consistency of laboratory content delivery across multiple tutors. Research ethics approval will be sought to survey students and collect Blackboard usage data.

Undergraduate psychology degrees are criticized for not including enough practical experiences. Students come in to the course expecting to obtain experience engaging in therapeutic interactions with other people. However ethical and financial constraints have meant that psychology courses continue not to live up to student expectations.

Technology has advanced to the point where the creation of relatively cheap (yet still high quality) virtual reality  simulations are now possible to solve a problem that has plagued the psychology discipline for decades. Facial motion capture software now exists that can quickly and easily capture detailed naturalistic facial expressions and place upon a virtual character.

We seek funds to allow us to run an initial pilot project of a virtual reality mock therapy experience with psychology undergraduate students, and gain feedback from students on a standard video playback version and a fully immersive VR version. It will be an interactive experience between student and virtual character. We expect that for such an experience the students will report the VR version as far superior.

Enhancement and evaluation of 3dTel, a next generation technology enhanced

learning tool for Biological Sciences

Three-dimensional (3D) virtual models have been demonstrated as an effective alternative in many study areas where real objects are inaccessible or fragile, and their 3D dummies/printed models are very expensive. Members of the project team have developed the 3dTel, an ACS Applied IT Project Award winning software tool for visualizing the 3D features of a complex object that cannot be observed fully through 2D photographs or videos. This project aims to fully apply and evaluate the 3dTel in Form and Function in Biology (SCI1187) offered by ECU School of Science.

Currently, the students (of the South-west campus) enrolled in SCI1187 rely on photographs and videos to study the structures and functions of different plants and animals. The preliminary evaluation of 3DTel by 30 JO students of SCI1187 in Semester-181 shows that 3dTel can better visualise these objects.

This project proposes enriching the tool with 3D scans of all the objects covered in the unit. It will be fully utilized/engaged (by and students) in Week-8 to 13 and evaluated (using Qualtrics surveys) in supporting student learning and their achieving the unit learning outcomes. The pass rates, retention and student satisfaction of the unit will be also compared against Semester-181.

Providing paramedic employers with work-ready graduates who have realistic expectations and real-world experience of the operational and clinical role of a professional paramedic is essential for Australian Universities (1, 2, 3). In the confines of a university undergraduate paramedic curricula offers real world experiences as a paramedic and professional awareness but these are often limited to clinical scenario simulation, practical skills, case-based learning and a limited number of external placements, the majority of which are no in the pre-hospital field.

Current students have recently approached ECU paramedic academic staff to feedback on their varied and at times inconsistent experiences on placements. After collaborating with students it was agreed that through the use of technology enhanced learning (TEL), video interviews of paramedics from different employers in Australia and Internationally would greatly benefit students by sharing information and expectations which will improve professional awareness prior, during and beyond the placement experiences thus contributing to graduate work readiness.

This project aims use of TEL in collaboration with undergraduate paramedics to develop a series of video interviews with a variety of paramedics in different contexts across Australia and Internationally to share their experiences and advice as professional paramedics. The resources developed will be embedded into a third year professional readiness unit within the undergraduate paramedic degree with an associated reflective e-portfolio (PebblePad) assessment.

Jonathan McIntosh

• BA Music Theatre courses requires students to develop keyboard skills, an essential practice that improves employability outcomes for graduates.
• Students learn keyboard in streamed, group classes, with many progressing from no background to being able to accompany themselves and others in a range of musical styles by their third year of  study.
• Teaching any musical instrument in group classes is especially challenging because there is limited capacity to monitor the specific movements/accuracy of students' technique; current approaches also rely heavily on oral instructions, diagrams and limited feedback during and after assessment.
• While many students possess sufficient aural skills to check their work, some fail to develop an appropriate keyboard technique because it is difficult for the tutor always to monitor all students the class. Consequently, students sometimes use incorrect correct fingering, misarticulate phrases and develop incorrect playing techniques.
• The project will use live-stream video technology to enhance students' learning of keyboard.
• The technology will allow the tutor to demonstrate all of the above technique elements, refer more easily to specific keys on the instrument, demonstrate practice techniques and drills and capture image or video segments that are then made available to students via Blackboard for review and personal study.

Currently, in research laboratories, it is necessary to use electronic lab (e-lab) books to record all data, no longer are researchers using paper based lab books. Therefore, in Sem 2, 2018, a trial of e-lab books using OneNote program, was done in a first year chemistry unit, SCC1201, Chemistry: Structure and Reactions in collaboration with and assistance from ITSC (Sam Prosser and Mariet Labuschange).

A number of problems/issues were identified with this trial. Consequently, this project seeks to ameliorate these problems by redesigning curriculum materials (ie. laboratory manual and lab reports) to integrate the use of e-lab books for teaching two first year chemistry units, SCC1123 and SCC1201 in the new Science building.

In particular this project aims to:

1. Create more structured lab report templates appropriate for OneNote program

2. Produce more interactive laboratory manual, which includes videos, pictures, diagrams and animations not just text

3. Utilise teams environment, so that students can share their results with each other and work more collaboratively

4. Provide more specific OneNote and tablet training for students (eg. recording videos, inserting mathematical equations and Excel spreadsheets)

The thoughtful use of learning technologies in this project is consistent with ECU’s Vision for Learning Technologies and supportive of Priority 1 and 4.5 of the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) blueprint. This project will showcase how technologies can be utilsed to increase student success and engagement, enrich and personalise the student experience, and underpin innovative and engaging teaching.

Current implementation of TEL varies widely across ECU. Academics cite common barriers to greater integration of technologies, including lack of awareness and understanding of how to identify, select and incorporate technologies to promote desired learning outcomes and support a more engaging and effective learning process. As a result, students and staff miss out on new opportunities for creativity and collaboration

through technologies that have the potential to make learning environments more personal, participatory, experiential and collaborative (Scott, 2015), enabling students to become producers of content rather than simply consumers (Frey, 2007).

A cross-School collaboration between SBL, SMHS and CLT will develop a TEL toolkit for two technologies containing short instructional videos, exemplar lesson plans, activities, reflective pieces, formative feedback activities and sample assessments across SBL and SMHS disciplines. An accompanying instructional document will include support contacts, license and (where relevant) costing information.