Assessing the unassessable: making learning visible in undergraduates’ experiences of scientific research

Wilson, A. N.; Howitt, Susan; Higgins, Denise

doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1050582

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Specific questions were designed to direct student attention to particular activities or learning outcomes. This approach was adapted from science research projects [ 20 ] and avoids issues of student concern about unstructured reflective writing and staff concern about assessing reflective writing, since marks are allocated for completing the task. Several questions were designed to prompt metacognition and self-reflection, which may contribute to more effective training as health professionals [ 21 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Factors affecting paramedicine students’ learning about evidence‐based practice: a phenomenographic study

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Evidence-based practice is an important component of pre-service professional learning in medicine and allied health degrees, including new programmes in paramedicine. Despite substantial interest in this area, there is still a lack of clear understanding of how the skills and understandings needed to develop the capacity to apply evidence-based practice can best be learned. Evidence-based practice is often described as consisting of five steps: ask, acquire, appraise, apply and assess. This study focuses on paramedicine students’ learning about the first three steps in a final year unit which explicitly aims to develop their skills in relation to these. Methods We conducted a qualitative study of learning journals recorded by 101 of 121 students in a final year unit of a paramedicine degree (20 students either withheld consent for their journals to be used in the research or did not complete their journal entries). We used phenomenographic approaches to the data analysis in order to identify both variation in students’ learning and the factors affecting this variation. Results We observed variation in students’ understanding of the purpose of literature analysis, the nature of medical research and its relationship to practice. In all three, we identify two main factors contributing to the variation in student learning outcomes: epistemological stance, and opportunities for metacognitive learning generated through peer interactions and self-reflection. We also found that as students begin to grapple with the complexity of medical research, this sometimes produced negative attitudes towards its value; such unintended outcomes need to be recognised and addressed. Conclusions We suggest key factors that should be considered in developing coursework intended to enhance students’ understandings about the processes and application of evidence-based practice. Providing collaborative learning opportunities that address the architecture of variation we observed may be useful in overcoming epistemological and metacognitive barriers experienced by students.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, they are not a survey tool that requires conventional validation or reliability testing. However, it is important to note that the question sets used in this study were created by adapting similar question sets that have been successfully used to surface student experience and understanding in undergraduate science [ 20 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting paramedicine students’ learning about evidence‐based practice: a phenomenographic study

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, teacher has to trace how the student's research skills form carefully in the first years of study. Successful efficiency evaluation requires emphasizing that students have to understand their projects and the research process, but not that these projects will be presented (Wilson, Howitt, & Higgins, 2016). Although school research projects contribute to student's understanding of the essence of scientific research and the formation of an ability to organize it, they do not lead to similar progress in understanding the nature of science (Aydeniz, Baksa, & Skinner, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodology of Research Activity Development in Preparing Future Teachers with the Use of Information Resources

Cao

Amanbayeva

Maimatayeva

et al. 2017

EURASIA J MATH SCI T

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The modern paradigm of education development has new demands on the professional and personal traits of a teacher, in particular, the ability to organize research activity of schoolchildren and to support their interest in science. The research competence of future teachers is a key characteristic that provides these skills. Properly organized research activity of future science teachers contributes not only to their research competence development, but also to their self-confidence as a professional, and thus, supports their motivation for further improvement in the field of teaching. This article presents a developed model of a methodological system for organizing the research activity development in training the future biologists at the pedagogical university. Based on the model, we have developed a comprehensive program for student's research competence development, which was tested at two courses of a pedagogical university. Comparison of the nine experimental groups (220 students) and nine control groups (218 students) showed that our program designed to develop student's research competence is effective. The paper also discusses the conditions, under which the program is effective, in particular, the importance of continuing education of teacher educators, as well as the necessity of interaction between educational and scientific institutions.

show abstract

“…Here learner involvement in a reflective process of assessment has been found to be a valuable part of the formative assessment process (Rogers et al 2017). A relatively simple use of IT to facilitate this process is seen in the use of reflective blogs (see for example Olofsson et al 2011;Wilson et al 2016).…”

Section: Motivational and Affective Aspects Influencing Learners' Engmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges for IT-Enabled Formative Assessment of Complex 21st Century Skills

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, we identify and examine opportunities for formative assessment provided by information technologies (IT) and the challenges which these opportunities present. We address some of these challenges by examining key aspects of assessment processes that can be facilitated by IT: datafication of learning; feedback and scaffolding; peer assessment and peer feedback. We then consider how these processes may be applied in relation to the assessment of horizontal, general complex 21st century skills (21st CS), which are still proving challenging to incorporate into curricula as well as to assess. 21st CS such as creativity, complex problem solving, communication, collaboration and self-regulated learning contain complex constructs incorporating motivational and affective components. Our analysis has enabled us to make recommendations for policy, practice and further research. While there is currently much interest in and some progress towards the development of learning/assessment analytics for assessing 21st CS, the complexity of assessing such skills, together with the need to include affective aspects means that using IT-enabled techniques will need to be combined with more traditional methods of teacher assessment as well as peer assessment for some time to come. Therefore learners, teachers and school leaders must learn how to manage the greater variety of sorts and sources of feedback including resolving tensions of inconsistent feedback from different sources.

show abstract

Assessing the unassessable: making learning visible in undergraduates’ experiences of scientific research

Cited by 17 publications

References 20 publications

Factors affecting paramedicine students’ learning about evidence‐based practice: a phenomenographic study

Factors affecting paramedicine students’ learning about evidence‐based practice: a phenomenographic study

Methodology of Research Activity Development in Preparing Future Teachers with the Use of Information Resources

Challenges for IT-Enabled Formative Assessment of Complex 21st Century Skills

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About