Predictors of student agency: the relationship between student agency, learning support and learning experiences in an interprofessional health science faculty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Interprofessional education allows for collaboration of two or more health professions during their training at university with a view of cultivating collaborative practice and client-centered health care. Although South Africa’s higher education system is the leader in the field of research on the continent, there is little evidence of the role of student agency in the attainment of collaborative interprofessional activities. Therefore, an exploration of the interconnectedness of student agency, learning support, learning experiences and the lecturer-student experiences of health science students is well worth academic scrutiny within a interprofessional academic space. Hence, this study illustrates how student agency is formed based on the lecturer–student relationship, learning support and learning experiences in an interprofessional education environment. This study assessed the association of the lecturer–student relationship, learning support and learning experiences on student agency in an interprofessional health science faculty. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 266 conveniently sampled third-year students in a Faculty of Community and Health Sciences. These include students from physiotherapy, nursing, occupational therapy, sport studies, social work, psychology, dietetics, and natural medicine. A forward stepwise linear regression was conducted with a p-value of 0.05 set as the level of significance. The results of this study showed significant positive associations for student agency with student learning experiences (r= .292, p< 0.001), the lecturer–student relationship (r= .333, p< 0.001) and learning support (r= .209, p< 0.001). Furthermore, the lecturer–student relationship was positively associated with learning support (r= .623, p< 0.001) in an interprofessional health science faculty. This paper concludes that there are positive outcomes to interprofessional education practices through the development of student agency.