Deer in the headlights: Towards an understanding of how journalism students engage with complex academic research methods modules

Journalism is at a crossroad. The rise of populist governments with accusations of fake news against what has always been considered to be Fourth Estate journalism means journalists face significant challenges to produce compelling, truthful, and accurate news at a time when reality is altered by those who do not agree with what journalists say. The current journalistic climate means journalists must move beyond the lexical meanings of what it means to be a journalist to a more critical one where they have to verify and analyse the news for the audience. One of the key ways in which journalists can respond to significant challenges to practice is by becoming more critically aware practitioners. A significant step in that direction occurs in journalism programmes at the university level where students are required to produce a critically researched dissertation as part of their conditions of earning a degree. However, with journalism being a traditionally vocational programme, challenges arise because students have difficulties drawing correlations between academic research and journalism practice. Our research aims to understand how students engage with academic research method modules. Based on our findings, we argue that students can use interactive learning methods and online resources to help engage with more complex and unfamiliar content

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes—measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation—was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K–12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K–12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education)

Patient safety in health care professional educational curricula: examining the learning experience

This study has investigated the formal and informal ways pre-registration students from four healthcare professions learn about patient safety in order to become safe practitioners. The study aims to understand some of the issues which impact upon teaching, learning and practising patient safety in academic, organisational and practice „knowledge? contexts. In Stage 1 we used a convenience sample of 13 educational providers across England and Scotland linked with five universities running traditional and innovative courses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists. We gathered examples of existing curriculum documents for detailed analysis, and interviewed course directors and similar informants. In Stage 2 we undertook 8 case studies to develop an in-depth investigation of learning and practice by students and newly qualified practitioners in universities and practice settings in relation to patient safety. Data were gathered to explore the planning and implementation of patient safety curricula; the safety culture of the places where learning and working take place; the student teacher interface; and the influence of role models and organisational culture on practice. Data from observation, focus groups and interviews were transcribed and coded independently by more than one of the research team. Analysis was iterative and ongoing throughout the study. NHS policy is being taken seriously by course leaders, and Patient Safety material is being incorporated into both formal and informal curricula. Patient safety in the curriculum is largely implicit rather than explicit. All students very much value the practice context for learning about patient safety. However, resource issues, peer pressure and client factors can influence safe practice. Variations exist in students? experience, in approach between university tutors, different placement locations – the experience each offers – and the quality of the supervision available. Relationships with the mentor or clinical educator are vital to student learning. The role model offered and the relationship established affects how confident students feel to challenge unsafe practice in others. Clinicians are conscious of the tension between their responsibilities as clinicians (keeping patients safe), and as educators (allowing students to learn under supervision). There are some apparent gaps in curricular content where relevant evidence already exists – these include the epidemiology of adverse events and error, root cause analysis and quality assessment. Reference to the organisational context is often absent from course content and exposure limited. For example, incident reporting is not being incorporated to any great extent in undergraduate curricula. Newly qualified staff were aware of the need to be seen to practice in an evidence based way, and, for some at least, the need to modify „the standard? way of doing things to do „what?s best for the patient?. A number of recommendations have been made, some generic and others specific to individual professions. Regulators? expectations of courses in relation to patient 9 safety education should be explicit and regularly reviewed. Educators in all disciplines need to be effective role models who are clear about how to help students to learn about patient safety. All courses should be able to highlight a vertical integrated thread of teaching and learning related to patient safety in their curricula. This should be clear to staff and students. Assessment for this element should also be identifiable as assessment remains important in driving learning. All students need to be enabled to constructively challenge unsafe or non-standard practice. Encounters with patients and learning about their experiences and concerns are helpful in consolidating learning. Further innovative approaches should be developed to make patient safety issues 'real' for students

Quality Enhancement Themes: the First Year Experience. Curriculum Design for the First Year

This report outlines the work and outcomes of a practice-focused development project 'Curriculum design for the first year'. The project was one of nine funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) under the First-Year Experience Enhancement Theme of the Scottish quality enhancement agenda. The stages of this curriculum design project included: completing a literature review; running staff workshops to gather and disseminate information; holding student focus groups to gather students, views and experiences of the curriculum; collecting case studies of interest to the sector; and reporting findings to the sector. Key findings from the literature are presented in this report. They include the need to adopt student-centred active learning strategies (Harvey, Drew and Smith, 2006; Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2005; Barefoot, 2002) and the importance of providing early formative feedback to students (Davidson and Young, 2005; Barefoot, 2002). Many suggestions for improving learning and teaching strategies have been adopted at module level, but could be implemented strategically across the breadth of a programme curriculum. Kift and Nelson (2005) supported this view and argued that it is equally important to support these principles with systemic university-wide change, including administrative and support programmes that are also integrated with the curriculum and student needs

Social Media Use in Health Professions: An Educational Intervention to Prevent the Misuse of Social Media in the Clinical Setting

Social media technologies have enormous benefits that facilitate communication, information sharing, and collaboration. The ease with which users can share information instantly has created challenges for the health professions in the form of HIPAA violations via social media. Furthermore, there are few published reports on educational programs aimed at teaching responsible use of social media for students pursuing careers in health professions. This study uses scholarly studies, reports of educational approaches to social media training for health professionals, and legal cases of HIPAA violations via social media to examine social media use in health professions to develop and pilot test a social media educational intervention to be used for training students in health profession appropriate use of social media. An online survey was administered using Survey Monkey to health profession students (n=25) pursuing careers in nursing, radiology, sonography, medical administration, and medical assisting to examine the extent of social media use by health profession students. Results revealed 23 of 25 (92%) students were actively engaged in social media for communication and consumption of information with Facebook being the preference for students. Participants (n=25) averaged 300 friends with the highest number of 1000 friends reported. In addition, an educational intervention in the form of an eCourse with embedded assessments was developed and deployed to participants using a t test Paired Two Sample Means with statistical significance of P \u3c. 05 for analysis. Results revealed a significant difference between pretest (M= 12.1) and posttest (M=21.5) assessments. These findings suggest educational intervention as a tool for increasing students\u27 knowledge of appropriate social media use in the clinical setting

Nursing students’ experience of learning cultural competence

Introduction European societies are rapidly becoming multicultural. Cultural diversity presents new challenges and opportunities to communities that receive immigrants and migrants, and highlights the need for culturally safe healthcare. Universities share a responsibility to build a fair and equitable society by integrating cultural content in the nursing curricula. This paper aims to analyze European student nurses´ experience of learning cultural competence and of working with patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. Materials and methods A phenomenological approach was selected through a qualitative research method. 7 semi-structured focus groups with 5–7 students took place at the participants’ respective universities in Spain, Belgium, Turkey and Portugal. Results 5 themes and 16 subthemes emerged from thematic analysis. Theme 1, concept of culture/ cultural diversity, describes the participants’ concept of culture; ethnocentricity emerged as a frequent element in the students’ discourse. Theme 2, personal awareness, integrates the students’ self-perception of cultural competence and their learning needs. Theme 3, impact of culture, delves on the participants’ perceived impact of cultural on both nursing care and patient outcomes. Theme 4, learning cultural competence, integrates the participants’ learning experiences as part of their nursing curricula, as part of other academic learning opportunities and as part of extra-academic activities. Theme 5, learning cultural competence during practice placements, addresses some important issues including witnessing unequal care, racism, prejudice and conflict, communication and language barriers, tools and resources and positive attitudes and behaviors witnesses or displayed during clinical practice. Conclusion The participants’ perceived level of cultural competence was variable. All the participants agreed that transcultural nursing content should be integrated in the nursing curricula, and suggested different strategies to improve their knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is important to listen to the students and take their opinion into account when designing cultural teaching and learning activities. © 2021 Antón-Solanas et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited