Coventry University: E-Journals
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Disciplinary Writing Tutors at Work: A study of the Character of the Feedback Provided on Academic Writing at the BA Programmes at the Humanities Department
Get PDFNew students struggle to develop academic writing skills during transition to university. To meet this challenge, the Humanities department at the University of Southern Denmark implemented a research and development project to increase feedback to student writers. In the project, graduate students were trained as disciplinary writing tutors, and subsequently provided feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. The study presented in this article examines the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors. As researchers, we ask, “What characterises the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors?” The study is positioned in a sociocultural framework that draws on theories of disciplinary and academic literacy. Data was collected in four bachelor’s degree programmes and consists of the feedback given by the tutors and interviews with the tutors conducted at the end of the tutoring. Principal results indicate that the feedback on the students’ texts is distributed at the text layer of content and structure and the text layer of formalities. Feedback at the text layer of sentences is almost absent. Feedback on the writing and learning processes is limited. The discipline-specific feedback occurs as indications in the feedback to the BA students and is made clearer when comparing feedback in different programmes. The feedback the writing tutors provide demonstrates an understanding of academic writing as academic socialisation
Local Partners’ Perspectives on Health Student Service-Learning Placements in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Pilot Qualitative Study with Partners from Vietnam and Timor-Leste
Get PDFService-learning programs can provide clinical assistance in low-resourced settings while providing students with intercultural learning opportunities in diverse health contexts; local partners’ perspectives on international service-learning (ISL) programs are integral to ethical, effective and sustainable university-community partnerships; yet the perspectives of local partners remain under-represented in research. Interpretive description methods guided data collection and thematic analysis of qualitative responses from written questionnaires. Four local partners from Vietnam and Timor-Leste responded to questionnaires in this pilot project. Three themes were identified regarding benefits, underpinning factors for program effectiveness, and a further three themes related to desired improvements. According to local partners, benefits of ISL include skill and knowledge exchange, enhanced assessment and intervention strategies, and increased service quality. Communication and relationships were seen as underpinning factors of effective partnerships. Areas for further improvement included drawing more strongly on local partner strengths and perspectives, further collaborative preparation for the placements, and more regular communication. These preliminary findings align with existing research regarding benefits to local partners. Modelling effective practices, formal training and meetings, and ongoing case discussions may be some useful methods for achieving knowledge and skill exchange in ISL
Perceptions, Competencies and Motivation for Study Choice: Occupational Therapy and Social Work Student Perspectives
Get PDFCaring for others is one of the most important attributes for individuals who want to be occupational therapists or social workers. Students are not necessarily aware of the challenges and responsibilities of the helping relationship. Deeper insights are needed into these aspects in order to train and prepare students to become competent, work-ready professionals. This study therefore aimed to describe student beliefs about their chosen profession, the competencies they perceived were most important to develop, and their motivators for their choice of profession. In this explorative study, 51 first-year students from occupational therapy (22 students) and social work (29 students) participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analysed thematically. Although participants had difficulty defining their future profession, they agreed it was all about helping people. A range of competencies was identified, such as establishing interpersonal relationships, sensitivity to difference, communication, flexibility, and teamwork. Differences emerged according to the chosen profession, such as creativity and imagination for occupational therapy students, and administrative skills and the desire to effect change for social work students. Concerning the choice of profession, most participants wanted to help others and engage in human relationships. Diversity and variety of tasks were also attractive elements of both professions. From the beginning of the program, educational institutions should describe more clearly occupational therapy and social work, so that students can develop a realistic vision of their future profession
Physiotherapy Students’ and Practice Educators’ Experiences of Using Placements Passports: A Tool to Enhance Collaboration on Placement
Get PDFIntegral to physiotherapy students’ study are their practice placements. Placements form a mandatory part of students’ programmes of study. Practice learning is seen as an essential component of the curricula and as such is a key element of the students’ learning and development. The UK health service, which continues to provide the majority of practice learning opportunities for healthcare students, is experiencing unprecedented demand on services. Practice educators are reporting increasing pressure to maintain service provision whilst trying to support students in the practice setting. To maximise learning on placement, the placement passport was developed. This aims to support a more collaborative approach to the student’s learning in practice, by promoting a partnership between the practice educator and the student, and by encouraging and enabling the students to develop their skills of self-evaluation and self-directed learning, but also giving the practice educator the opportunity to try to tailor the experience to the student’s needs and wants. This study aims to explore students’ and practice educators’ experiences of using a placement passport in physiotherapy education. Five students and four practice educators attended one-off focus groups to explore their experiences. Findings suggested that the passport is a tool to support collaborative approaches to students’ learning, helping students and practice educators to bridge the gap between academia and the reality of practice. It also provided both with the opportunity to begin early dialogue around the students’ and practice educators’ expectations of the practice placement while acknowledging prior learning and development.
 
Students’ Perceptions of Simulation-Based Learning in Speech Pathology: A Pilot Study
Get PDFDue to increased student numbers and workforce limitations, speech pathology students have fewer opportunities to develop skills in working with adult populations in traditional clinical placements. Using simulation-based learning has proven to be advantageous in other disciplines. The use of simulation to develop clinical skills in speech pathology range of practice areas, including speech, language and swallowing in adults, has been less well researched. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ overall perceptions about simulation-based learning, particularly their confidence related to specific clinical skills and perceived anxiety about working with adult clients. Six final year speech pathology students enrolled in either a 4-year undergraduate or 2.5-year masters program participated in this research. Students engaged in five simulation-based learning activities across one day. Purposefully developed pre- and post- surveys were completed to explore students’ anxiety levels and perceptions of confidence regarding clinical skills across domains of foundation knowledge, case history, assessment, intervention, interaction and clinical reasoning, and anxiety levels. The Satisfaction with Simulation Experience (SSE) Scale was completed post-simulation experience. Students also participated in a focus group discussion following the simulation experience. Student median ratings of clinical skills improved from pre- to post-simulation across the six domains. All students reported that the simulation-based learning experience was valuable and reported increased levels of confidence and enhanced preparedness for their clinical placements. Findings from this study suggested that students value simulation-based learning and future research should explore learning outcomes from a longer, more intensive simulation program
Get a Room! How Writing Groups Aid the Development of Junior Academics’ Writing Practice and Writer Identity
Get PDFThe present study revisits writing retreat participants who have spontaneously formed writing groups before or after attending a retreat hosted by the Unit for Academic Language at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. All in all, 11 doctoral students and one postdoc were interviewed using a semi-structured interview model. The answers were thematically analysed based on Murray’s (2014) concept of coherence in writing groups as well as parts of Aitchison and Lee’s (2006) key characteristics of writing groups. The two main research questions posed concern (i) whether the informants have changed their writing practice and/or the way they think and feel about writing since joining a writing group, and (ii) whether possible changes have aided the development of their identity as academic writers. Results show that the informants have indeed changed central aspects of their writing practice and that this in turn has positively influenced how they now think and feel about writing. This has to some extent contributed to the informants’ development of their writer identity; however, the present study also sheds light on the fact that more needs to be done at departmental levels across the university to make academic writing visible
Inclusive Pedagogy in the Academic Writing Classroom: Cultivating Communities of Belonging
Get PDFThis practice-oriented article considers two questions: What does higher education research tell us about student conceptions and experiences with inclusivity? What are the implications of this research for academic writing classrooms and curricula? I first review key themes and findings from research on the nature of social inclusion in higher education, including interviews conducted with undergraduates at my institution. I then consider how academic writing scholars have (and have not) taken up the concept of inclusivity within our policies, curricula, and instruction. Finally, I identify four areas we can focus on as a way to deepen our commitment to inclusive pedagogy: building community, inviting lived experience, preparing students for discomfort, and talking openly about equity. I conclude with examples of how I am working toward those goals in my own teaching practice
Speech Pathologists’ Perceptions of the Impact of Student Supervision
Get PDFQualitative studies have described clinician perspectives on student placements. These studies highlight likely contributors to placement shortages, but little is documented in speech pathology (SP). This article describes SP clinician perceptions of student impact/s on their clinical and other work tasks, stress levels and time management, and explores factors that may contribute to these perceptions of their experience. Interpretive description was selected to analyse public health sector SP clinician online survey responses. Open-ended questions explored clinician perceptions of student impact on specified components of their work as well as any other aspects clinicians identified. Thirty-four SP clinicians with varying caseloads and experience levels responded. Clinicians perceived that students can positively or negatively impact their clinical and non-clinical activities. Many also identified negative impacts on their stress levels. Some commented on differing impacts for patients and other colleagues. Collective themes of Clinician, Supervision Practices, Workplace, and Student are presented in a model of potential influences on the experience of student impact. SP clinicians perceived that experience of student impact is varied and complex. Influences are likely to be multi-factorial and further research is needed in a range of contexts to guide clinicians, managers and universities in supporting SP student clinical placements
Preparing Postgraduates for the Profession: Toward Translingual Pedagogical Practices in Advanced Graduate Student Writing Instruction in Germany
Get PDFContributing to the literature on translingual pedagogies outside the US or Canada, this article discusses the design of a hybrid instructional format for advanced multilingual doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers offered by a bilingual writing center at a mid-sized university in Germany. Meant to prepare participants for future careers in academia and professional demands in different national, cultural, and linguistic environments, this format provides the opportunity to explore academic genres that tend to receive less attention in graduate education than journal articles, book chapters, or genres needed to complete degree requirements. By the end of the course, participants will have a submission-ready portfolio including an academic CV, a job letter, a (sample) letter of recommendation, and teaching and diversity statements. To achieve these specific outcomes and to develop the advanced professional academic writing competencies needed in multicultural and multilingual contexts, participants will have to draw on their diverse linguistic backgrounds and prior experiences in these kinds of settings. Informed also by other recent theoretical and empirical work on translingualism and translingual pedagogies in global contexts, this format adopts the use of translation proposed by Horner (2017) to move beyond the monolingual and, to a lesser extent, multilingual paradigms. While it has yet to be tested empirically, the design represents an alternative to more traditional (and usually monolingual) modes of instruction. This article concludes by discussing limitations and implications of the approach to translingual pedagogies taken here