Sponsor/year: Library, 2016-17.

Project leads: Fiona Russell, Christine Oughtred and Chris Rawson.

Aim: Increase students’ ability to appraise research evidence in a discipline context.

Underpinning theories/literature: Adaptive individualization: the next generation of online education: a paper describing adaptive learning.

• Immediate feedback: Students receive immediate, personalised feedback on their responses, which is not generally possible in large cohorts. Students can see immediately where they have gaps in their knowledge and can progress at a rate that is tailored to their level of expertise, which saves them time and promotes the relevance of their learning activities.
• Interactive, authentic style: The scenario-based, interactive design introduces a variation to the students’ usual learning formats. The context reflects real contexts and problems in which their learning will be used, and the active learning style helps keep them focused.
• Embedded literacies: Embedding digital literacy skills in discipline contexts normalises the learning of these skills, rather than seeing them as a literacy that some students lack and for which they need remedial learning activities.
• Concise information and definitions: Information provided in the modules is necessarily concise, while extensive. Simple definitions of key terms and concepts are provided.
• Opportunity to revisit, consolidate: The modules gave students an opportunity to revisit and consolidate learning from other methods, taking as much time as they needed to master the concepts.
• Constructively aligned: Use of the modules helped students to complete their assessment tasks, which included an annotated bibliography and an exam that covered some evidence-based practice concepts.

A screenshot from the quantitative research module

An alternative format may be downloaded here: Module 5: Quantitative research (DOCX 13KB)

• Student success: HNN108 success rates for LSES students rose 4.1% from Trimester 2 2015 (pre-intervention) to Trimester 2, 2016 (first implementation). The number of LSES students who did not complete the unit fell from 4% to 1.2% (SIPU). However, other significant changes were also made to the unit in this period, so not all of this change can be attributed to the modules (interview). A similar positive trend occurred in an Occupational Therapy unit in which the modules were embedded in Trimester 1, 2017, along with other improvements (interview).
• Staff capacity building and boundary crossing: Library and academic staff said they had learnt useful pedagogical and/or technical skills as part of the modules’ development. Their collaboration also increased their understanding of each other’s particular skills and knowledge, which would be helpful for future work together (report).

Teacher comments

Teachers described the modules as 'terrific' and said they had noticed 'the students really seem to have engaged well with them' (report).

Kelly, B, Rawson, C, Freestone, C & Russell, F 2016, 'Evidence-based learning: interactive, online EBP modules for first year nursing. A case study', Health Inform, vol.  25, no. 2 (also presented at 13^th Health Libraries Inc. Conference, 21 October, 2016).

Russell, F, Rawson, C, Freestone, C, Currie, M, & Kelly, B 2018, 'Parallel lines: a mixed methods impact analysis of co-curricular digital literacy online modules on student results in first year nursing', College & Research Libraries.