Student Consultation on Mobile Learning: methods, messages and musings

1. Student Consultation on Mobile Learning: methods, messages and musings Ceri Coulby Educational Staff Development Officer Viktoria Joynes ALPS Research Officer www.alps-cetl.ac.uk

2. A Question: • When do you think students should be consulted on their OWN curriculum? • -Pre-course start • -Regular reviews throughout course • -Post course • -They shouldn’t be consulted

3. About the Projects • ALPS* • 900 Mobile Devices (PDAs) • 16 Health and Social Care Professions • Assessment Tool • University of Leeds • Final Year Medical Students • 14 Re-Sit Placements • PDAs for Mini-CEX *Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings CETL: Universities of Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and York St John and Leeds Metropolitan Universities

4. Methods of Consultation • All PRE-assessment tool • being rolled out • Workshop: Watched • Scenario and Feedback • Focus Group • Simulation Exercise •Initial PDA trial (pre-placement) •Post placement: Focus Groups and evaluative questionnaires

5. As a group discuss the potential benefits and barriers to student consultation. What is your experience of student consultation? Can you predict our findings? TASK

6. Methods of Consultation (2) NO INCENTIVES OFFERED!

7. Findings – Mini-CEX “Typing was time consuming” “I think having an email/ phone number for support is important. I didn’t use this, but felt reassured that it was there” “My suggestion would be to keep the format simple and the number of assessments reasonable” “I have really enjoyed this placement. As compared to other placements I think I had a clearer sense of my goals and what I wanted to achieve. I really felt supported by people on the team and felt learning opportunities were made easily available”

8. IMPACT Scaled project for entire final year Reduced the number of assessments Told students to use audio to record feedback Produced online training materials Revised evaluation

9. Findings - ALPS “If the patient wanted to say something negative…then how does that student respond to that? And who’s going to support that student to deal with that afterwards?” “The assessment is usable although I feel the wording needs to be altered. The questions were appropriate – the multiple choice answers need to be decreased as they are too broad” “I feel the assessment would work well in practice if the student had full control of their own PDA and it was not used in a way which would place the student under more pressure”

10. IMPACT Recommendation that assessors receive service user feedback as opposed to students Language of assessment tool Revised protocol for tool use Guidelines for mobile device use Further consultations

11. Negatives • - Students do not always turn up! • - By consulting PRE- project, it takes longer to get anything produced. i.e. Assessment tool – continuous consultations • - Can only be done without time-constraints (re-sit students – finite amount of time, assessment tool – less time pressured) • - PRE-project consultation...more stressful for project team • Requires more resources and time

12. Positives +HOWEVER – saves re-write time, and increases success chance of the first run of the project +Consulting at outset made students feel more involved – and more engaged as a result +Students feel valued- and more willing to engage in research

13. Another Question… How would what you have heard today, from us and your peers, influence your approach to student involvement? If you were working on our project would you have conducted student consultation differently?

14. Consulting pre-project created a much more usable assessment tool as a result of consultation BUT it’s not always appropriate to consult PRE and POST How much student time are we able to/should we use up? Reflection