Building students' research skills

Winners of the best overall poster on Elder Abuse

And so - it's finally been and gone. The past few weeks have been a bit of a nightmare but in the end I think we can say it was a success and definitely worth doing again.

So here's the low down - what we did and why, the outcomes, and the do's and dont's of organising an Undergraduate Research Conference.

The problem: students at Level 6 approaching their capstone dissertation show limited understanding of the basics of research methods, poor referencing skills and even worse skills in searching for appropriate literature.

The Level 4 introduction to referencing and literature searching and the Level 5 Research Methods are dismissed time and time again in students' module evaluations as boring and irrelevant. So for the past 4 years as a team we have been rethinking our approach. The problem seems to lie in students applying their skills so having an authentic assessment task at the end of the first year seemed like a possible way forward, and an undergraduate research conference that involved an audience of fellow students, teaching and support staff, local employers and colleges, seemed like a way of achieving this.

The task: students were required to produce a research poster related to a contemporary Health and Social Care issue. Students chose their own topics, worked in small groups, carrying out independent research and presented their final work as either a PowerPoint slide (templates are available in Powerpoint), as a Prezi or a Padlet wall. Independent research had to include a literature review (for the final poster) and could incorporate a small scale piece of primary research (typically a survey of fellow students or teaching staff).

As a formative task, in preparation for the final poster, students had to prepare a short presentation (5 minutes - 5/6 slides only) in which they pitched their research proposal. This was fairly structured with specific questions to be answered, including an early indication of the literature used so far. I was able to give feedback on referencing and quality of sources (see results) and used this as an opportunity to also discuss the appropriateness of proposed research methods, including ethical considerations.


The teaching methods: the module is supported by a team of teachers including our Subject Librarian (Emma Hayes) and Learning Support Coordinator (Sian Trafford), as well as a Post Graduate Researcher (Louise Griffiths).  Emma and Sian took charge of literature searching and referencing, Louise supported the students to produce an academic research poster and I taught a basic introduction to research methodology. The module is taught in the Scale Up classroom which really lends itself to interactive, group based activities, so traditional lecturing was kept to a minimum. Emma really livened up a potentially rather dull area by employing Socrative for competitive team quizzes on referencing and Padlet was used regularly to capture groups' ideas. As the task was group based, Scale Up (with round tables for up to 9 students and laptops available) makes the ideal environment for students to get on with tasks in class, with tutor support on hand. Sessions are typically 40% teacher input (mini lectures, tutorial support and directed activities) and 60% independent project work.


The results: The great thing about having a formative task mid-way through the process is that it allowed us to see what was going well and what the students were not quite grasping. Looking at the group presentations, it was clear that the messages about using good quality resources was not going in and many references were to news media (the Daily Mail ranked high in the list of publications!) and digest websites such as Psychology Today. In a tragic case of mis-timing I gave students the feedback on the same day they were asked to complete their module evaluations, so you can imagine how that went.... Whilst the proposals were imaginative and dealt with relevant issues, the level of research skills was not particularly great. Here are the stats for this particular criterion:

Adjusting the remaining teaching sessions, we went over literature search techniques, evaluation of sources and referencing once again and insisted that a short literature review of at least 3 peer reviewed articles be included in the final poster.


This time, we saw a real improvement:

The week before the conference, I ran a drop in session in which students were given detailed feedback on their posters and the winning submissions for the conference were announced. This session saw a lot of smiling faces - even those who hadn't been selected were really pleased with their results, as in the majority if cases they had seen an improvement in their grades.

Poster themes were very varied including several on mental health - one looked at Bipolar Disorder  in Children, another at Men and Depression; one contrasted postnatal depression in British White and British Pakistani women and 2 dealt with students and mental health. Men as Victims of Domestic Abuse, Elder Abuse, Workplace Bullying, Child Protection and Fostering were other topics studied.

For the conference, we simply selected the posters with the highest grades. The idea was to have visitors voting on their favourites and to award prizes for the three best -  best poster by college students, best undergraduate and best overall.


The conference: We were fortunate in having the support of our excellent Schools Outreach and Marketing teams to help with the logistics. We also had a ready made venue (our normal Scale Up classroom was big enough for the modest numbers proposed providing sufficient display space for the posters, as well as suitable seating arrangements for the discussion groups and presentations).

The half day event included short talks on post graduate research and careers in health and social care (giving our students an idea of what they can aim for) and discussion groups on independent learning and research skills (this latter session hosted by a 2nd year student, Sarah Swanwick) to help first year students think about their progression on the course and to give Year 12 students from local colleges an idea of what study at University is all about.

These sessions all evaluated really well. Undergraduates tended to prefer the session on independent learning whilst the college students were most interested in the talk on careers. Other interesting feedback from the college students was that they came to the event not having considered this as a degree subject (even though they were all studying a Health and Social Care A level or BTEC award), tending rather to think in terms of a nursing or social work qualification, but they ended the day having far greater insight into available careers in the field and even considering applying for this course!

For the college students, the highlight of the event was meeting current undergraduates and teaching staff whilst our undergraduates enjoyed looking at one another's posters best of all. They were also interested to meet teaching staff they had not yet encountered (those who teach primarily on the 3rd year dissertation module came along to vote in the best poster competition) and at least one of our first year students has acquired a work placement with the local health and social care organisation that was represented on the day.


The final verdict and some notes to self: The hardest part of the whole conference was getting people there. Timing was tricky - we could not run the event any earlier because of the assignment deadlines (set for the last week of Term 2), but as it fell after Easter, it clashed with mock exams in colleges which reduced the participation from that quarter. Some of our third year students had originally asked if they could be involved running discussion groups in order to get feedback they needed for a project evaluation but pulled out at the last minute (one less than 8 hours before!) when they suddenly realised this was the week their final dissertation was due to be submitted.....

Most disappointing was that three groups who had had their posters selected for the final conference and competition did not send any representatives on the day. Interestingly these were also the only groups that had submitted Prezis, so with no one at their displays to press the buttons and talk visitors through their work, they were largely ignored and attracted only a handful of votes in each case.

I don't really know how to solve these problems. With a bigger venue and budget and more support from the rest of the course team, I think this could become a display of ALL posters (about 30 in total). With potentially 150 students involved, drop outs would be less of an issue. As for the college students - we had applications from 20 but only 8 made it on the day - starting recruitment earlier and providing more support to the colleges could help, but timing is probably still likely to be an issue.

For those who came, it was definitely worthwhile: staff were impressed at the quality of the work, our local authority visitors were really engaged talking to students and delighted to have been invited, those students who turned up gave us a big thumbs up in their satisfaction ratings (yes - much better than the module evaluation!!) and the poster competition and presentation of small prizes and certificates made for a great celebration of their efforts.

The next step is to try and bring this level of engagement into the second year module.  I would like to have both years involved in the same event, perhaps as part of a summative assessment task. And eventually all 3 years.  My hope is that this becomes part of our normal academic year, with conversations about research theory and practice between all students and staff seen as both a normal part of teaching and learning and also something to occasionally get excited about.

Digital storytelling - the process

image: pixabay

So the digital stories are now rolling in. Final year students on my course are all now engaged in producing their end-of-year reflections on learning.

I began the year/semester with the Photopeach video essay on professional identity and values. This had a dual purpose - introducing students to the concept of the digital reflection or story, using OER, and also familiarising them with a Web 2.0 content creation platform - a form of digital warm up.

The step up from this to the digital story is not inconsiderable - there is a narration/voice over required in this final work and the level of reflection should be higher and the content more personal - but the basic processes are the same, including the use of creative commons licensed images and music and hosting on a social platform.

To support my students in the development of their stories I have provided them with a range of resources, including a link to a really useful website - http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/ which gives an overview of how to produce a digital story from storyboard through to video editing software and lots of examples to inspire them. I also gave them a free choice as to which platform to use and showed them examples using Prezi and Knovio. Other options include Screencast-o-matic and Windows Movie Maker.

I developed a rubric or set of assessment criteria based on Moon's stages of learning (see p6:  http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/ctlr/documents/jenny-moon-workshop---reflection-in-higher-education-learning.docx ) which I shared with the students to help them understand the level of reflection that is expected.

I am hoping that the digital stories will yield a deeper or higher level of reflection because of the medium used. In previous years when asking the final year students to reflect on the group process and their learning from it, I have in the main received traditional, theory based essays written in the academic style. I was hoping that by asking for this to be spoken, rather than written, and to include images and music, there will be a greater emotional depth to the reflections.

So far the themes emerging from the final year students reflections over the course of their University careers are much as would be expected (or hoped!). Most frequently mentioned themes are their future career plans, increasing confidence, development of communication skills, the stress of studying, worries about academic ability, developing emotional resiliance, self organisation and time management skills and overcoming all of the fears associated with starting University  - moving away from home, fitting in and making friends. Developing independence, managing work/life balance and motivation are also mentioned by quite a few. Because our course places a major emphasis on it, it is not surprising that many refer to volunteering and work experience and remark upon the transferability of skills learned to future employment. Team work was actually the most frequently mentioned theme - but as my final year students are producing this assignment for a module on teamwork and leadership, this is hardly surprising.

A less common theme, but mentioned by some students from the BME community, is the ethnic diversity within the cohort, and the tendency for those from the African diaspora to stick together. The stories of refugees' journeys - running from civil war to higher education in the UK - were particularly moving. Similarly, the mature students on the course frequently refer to the age of students and feeling "too old for school" as one put it. Some students talk about their struggles with chronic illness, learning disabilities, being bullied at school, and being the first of their families to enter higher education.

I was struck by how this form of assignment gave a voice to some who generally are not very vocal in seminars. Indeed the less formal style of expression and the freedom to be creative seemed to allow some of these quieter students to really excel. The assessment criteria for this digital story is based mainly on depth of reflection and there were some surprisingly high levels from students who do not normally do well in the usual academic assignment. On the other hand, this creative format may have been less comfortable for those used to getting high grades in essays and reports: they seemed to stick to a more formulaic response that focused on academic skills and achievements rather than their personal development.

I have assessed the levels of reflection to some extent on how much the students engage in meta- reflection - commenting on the process of learning itself, rather than simply what they have learned, on their growing self awareness and their commentary on how the process of reflection aids this. The artefacts seem fairly evenly spread between three levels: (2) making sense (able to notice and organise material to develop a reflective narrative) (3) making meaning (linking this narrative to other perspectives - including theory - and evidencing an emerging awareness of their own part in it) and (4) working with meaning (an emerging understanding of the learning process itself and increased self awareness). No-one has been stuck at the level of merely noticing (level 1) - i.e. a purely descriptive account, as most have been able to at least add some form of evaluation of their experiences. But neither have I seen much evidence of a convincing Level 5 -  that of Transformative Learning. One student came close to this with some quite deep ruminating about the influence of friendships on the successful functioning of groups: I had a sense there of a radical shift in her thinking as she explored this.

In terms of platforms used and level of technical skills, the majority used Prezi with a voice over added at each step. Next in popularity was good old PowerPoint - again with a clip of narration added to each slide, followed by Knovio, which is basically a PowerPoint presentation uploaded to the internet and then a voiceover recorded.

Two or three students have created videos in a photostory format, one did an RSA-style speeded up drawing on a whiteboard and another used Screencast-o-matic, navigating through various documents whilst discussing them.

The level of technical skill demonstrated in producing these digital stories has been variable but all have managed to produce something at least functional, attractive and audible whilst the very best are brilliantly creative, witty and original.

Quite a few students in their evaluations of the past year actually cite this assignment as amongst their favourites - of course there is a sense in which they would say that, wouldn't they? but they haven't at the same time gone overboard in their praise of me or the module itself... they simply seem to have enjoyed this and the previous student led learning activity as "different" forms of assessment which tested and developed new skills that they also recognised as valuable in the field of employment.

 What about the impact on me as the marker? On a practical level, it is fairly quick and straightforward to watch a 5-10 minute video; trying to arrive at a level is less easy, even following the rubric I developed before hand, as it is hard to interpret what someone else has learned by listening to short accounts such as these, still harder to put any sort of "value" on that learning. Nevertheless it is no harder than trying to do the same with a 2000 word reflective essay and in many ways it is a good deal more engaging, as in listening to their stories I have felt as though I am in some way sharing their journeys. The use of images, music and voice to tell their story gives these reflective accounts much more emotional impact and in many cases they feel very intimate.

That may be why in most cases the students have not made their stories public but instead chosen PowerPoint or an unlisted url on YouTube. Where they have used Prezi or Knovio, most have disguised their identities and all have been anxious to be reassured that only I (and the external examiner) will get to see and hear their finished artefacts. There are though one or two that I would dearly love to use as "promo videos" to show prospective students and I am hoping that their authors can be persuaded to go public at some point. I am incredibly proud of what they have all achieved  - on many levels - and would love to share their labours with you too, dear reader!

Thinking Ahead

In another great centrally driven initiative, all programmes were told this year that they had to produce a pre-induction activity for prospective students. Actually I do agree that some sort of engagement with students prior to starting their studies is a great idea, I just dislike central, marketing driven initiatives that sneak up on you without warning....

Earlier in the Spring I had listened to our acting Dean talking about the importance of careers education starting as early as possible in a student's university life and so - Hey Presto! - these two great ideas collided in my head and my pre-induction activity became a "career investigation" website.

I based it on a wiki and started with grandiose ideas about getting students to collaborate or at least start discussions with one another. Then I chickened out and opted for straightforward information-giving with a structured activity culminating in the completion of an answer sheet which they could print off and bring to Induction Week.

The activity directed them to four skills sector websites which guided prospective employees through interactive quizzes to find the most suitable career or provided detailed information about a wide range of roles. In addition I posted links to some of the main charities who represent the types of care users our students will most likely come into contact with. (This idea came from another colleague and I think it really added a helpful dimension to the site).

Finally, I gave them a few contact points for the course, including a Facebook page which our student mentors had set up for them (no staff involved!).

As I was using Wikispaces I found it fairly easy to monitor site hits and views by individual user. We were averaging about 8 or 9 people a day visiting with a peak of 125 views. The night before the course induction we had 40 visitors and 450 views!

The Facebook site was slow to take off but by the time Induction week came along 28 students had joined up.

On the big day I collected in 25 completed answer sheets - out of around 90 students who attended my session.

On the whole I am pretty pleased with the level of response - particularly as this is my first attempt, but obviously I'd like to work on getting an even larger % take up next time!

In terms of the answer sheets that were returned, the first couple of questions asked them to say which jobs most interested them and which least.

(I should explain ours is a BA (Hons) Health and Social Care and we have "pathways" in criminal justice, counselling, communities and policy/leadership)

I was not surprised to find that most wanted to be Social Workers. The next most popular sector was criminal justice, followed by counselling, advice and mental health and finally other types of social care workers.

The most gratifying part of the feedback came in answer to the question "what did you learn from looking at the websites?"

Almost all responded that they had been surprised and pleased at the wide variety of roles on offer in the health and social care sector. Many had not considered a clinical role but some of our graduates do go on to train to be nurses, midwives, Occupational Therapists etc.

One responded that they felt sure they were on the right degree course because of the choice of pathways available given that they were still undecided about their ultimate career direction.

Another question focused on what further qualifications or experience they would need to reach their career goals. Some made quite detailed replies demonstrating that they had researched this thoroughly and all seemed to have a realistic sense of what they needed to do beyond graduation.

Some of my colleagues disagree vehemently with the idea of embedding careers planning in our curriculum arguing that this is not the university's primary function. On the other side of the argument, students themselves seem to want to be better prepared to get a decent job at the end of their university course and employers are looking to us to provide them with graduates who are savvy about the world of work.

Is it right that we talk to students at this early stage about careers? Are we encouraging them to see education only as something instrumental in getting a job? What about the joy of learning for its own sake? Or is that a luxury only those of us already in employment and who got our degrees in the time of local education authority grants, can afford to entertain?

I certainly feel I owe a duty of care to my students to give them the best possible chance of success in the job market and if realising that their education can help them achieve that success makes them a little bit more appreciative of the course they chose, or makes them want to do well in their studies because they know that will also help them in the long term, then that is no bad thing either.

(image Laenulfean)