Postgraduate Cohort Research Articles

Progress in transforming a health sciences postgraduate cohort in a south african research-intensive institution, 2008–2017

BackgroundEquity redress in the higher education and health sectors is a global discourse that seeks to address the inequalities caused by past discrimination practices. The apartheid regime in South Africa fragmented both the higher education and the health sectors, creating White and male dominated systems. Consequently, Black Africans and females were under-represented in these sectors. Furthermore, the provision of higher education including medical training was unequal between the different populations. As democracy was established in South Africa in 1994, it is necessary to assess whether transformation in population affinity and sex of postgraduate students in the higher education and health sector has occurred, as these individuals are crucial for providing the future academic workforce and also healthcare to the public.MethodsThe demographic profile of postgraduate students graduating in a health sciences facility in South Africa over the period 2008–2017 was retrospectively assessed. Survival analysis models were used to investigate the time taken to graduate. Log-rank tests were used to compare the completion rates.ResultsMore females (53.3%) than males (41.9%) completed their postgraduate degree over the period 2008–2017 (p˂0.0001). In relation to population affinity, more White students (56.4%) than Black African students (40.8%) completed their degrees overall (p˂0.0001).ConclusionWhile transformation occurred in the sex of graduating students over the ten year period, the same change has not occurred with regards to population affinity. The under-representation of Black African graduates is a major setback for efforts to diversify the South African higher education and health sectors. Transformation of the demographic profile of postgraduate students at South African institutions is vital for developing individuals who will contribute to equitable redress of academic staff in the higher education sector and also of the healthcare workforce. Diversified health personnel including highly skilled clinician scientists will aid in improving the provision of health care to communities particularly the underpriviledged rural areas, and also assist in training the next generation of healthcare staff. The challenges identified in this study may assist other countries where adequate transformation of the education and health sectors has not occurred.

A scoping review protocol of the lived experiences of doing a PhD in Africa.

This scoping review aims to investigate the available literature on the lived experiences of doing a PhD in African Universities. The continent of Africa still contributes a minimal amount of research towards global research outputs. The need for increased research capacity and outputs have been identified as priority for growth and development. There is a substantial need for evidence-based solutions that can alleviate some of these complexities. For example, challenges still exist in the disease burden faced, economic poverty and lack of infrastructure in various contexts. Multiple databases will be searched, including the EBSCO Host, Scopus, EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline (Ovid), and Google Scholar. The scoping review will be conducted using the Arksey & O'Malley (2005)'s six-step approach in conjunction with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews. Studies that examined the perspective of PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) candidates, supervisors from Africa, and research studies focusing on the common barriers and facilitators concerning research in Africa will be included. Studies that explore the perspectives of other postgraduate cohorts will be excluded. Ethics application will not be required but findings will be disseminated through publications, conference presentation, policy, and relevant stakeholders. This study has been registered with the Open Science Forum (OSF).

Preparing Students for a Digitized Future

Through this study, a vehicle to enhance existing education curricula was demonstrated, by exposing students to research-informed educational activities and to experience the key digital systems used in different industrial sectors. Digital skills are in high demand across the globe, with over a million digitally skilled people required by 2022 in the U.K. alone. With digital skills being vital to a country’s economy, there is a need to develop the higher education sector to prepare students for a digitized future—a key area of future graduate skills. The overall aim of the project was to train students in cutting-edge digital technologies through two separate week-long boot camps, targeting undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts. To this end, an educational project primed by research-informed teaching was successfully organized at the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the industry, to directly enhance the student’s personal development in the digital field, the findings of which are reported in this article. Researchers and practitioners presented practical applications of various digital technologies during the boot camps.

Computer-Aided Teaching Using Animations for Engineering Curricula: A Case Study for Automotive Engineering Modules

One-dimensional (1-D) demonstrations, e.g., the black-box systems, have become popular in teaching materials for engineering modules due to the high complexity of the system’s multidimensional (e.g., 2-D and 3-D) identities. The need for multidimensional explanations on how multiphysics equations and systems work is vital for engineering students, whose learning experience must gain a cognitive process understanding for utilizing such multiphysics-focused equations into a pragmatic dimension. The lack of knowledge and expertise in creating animations for visualizing sequent processes and operations in academia can result in an ineffective learning experience for engineering students. This study explores the benefits of animation, which can eventually improve the teaching and student learning experiences. In this article, the use of computer-aided animation tools is evaluated based on their capabilities. Based on their strengths and weaknesses, the study offered some insights for selecting the investigated tools. To verify the effectiveness of animations in teaching and learning, a survey was conducted for undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts and automotive engineering academics. Based on the survey’s data, some analytics and discussion have offered more quantitative results. The historic data (2012–2020) analysis has validated the animations efficacy as achievements of the study, where the average mark of both modules has significantly improved, with the reduced rate of failure.

When the personality of others matters: Self-monitoring, homophily, and the origins of brokerage.

We investigate whether the personalities of the professionals with whom individuals interact help explain the extent to which individuals occupy brokerage positions in social networks. We draw on self-monitoring theory and research concerning the extent to which people flexibly adapt attitudes and behaviors to the demands of different situations. We suggest that differences in self-monitoring personality affect social structure beyond the reach of the individual. In Study 1, we use cross-sectional data on advice relations in a hospital to investigate patterns of similarity matching. We find that high self-monitors attract advice requests mainly from high self-monitors, and low self-monitors from low self-monitors, although high self-monitors receive more advice requests overall. In Study 2, we use longitudinal data on advice relations within a post-graduate cohort, to show that high self-monitors come to occupy network brokerage roles to the extent that they are sought for advice by other high self-monitors. High self-monitoring contacts tend to remain unconnected from each other whereas low self-monitoring contacts tend to interact with each other. In contrast to existing research that emphasizes the agency of focal individuals, our research reveals the extent to which brokerage opportunities depend on the personalities of those with whom professionals interact.

Clinical Anatomy and Unexpected Careers: Is There Curriculum for That?

Reduction in faculty positions in higher education and increased graduate matriculation rates represent a higher education conundrum. Planned happenstance theory (PHT) is a career development model focusing on positive outcomes resulting from unpredictable precareer events. This mixed methods study explores how PHT applies to the career paths of a clinical anatomy (CA) postgraduate cohort. It provides insight into educational practices designed to equip students for labor markets inside and outside academia. Alumni of CA (n=12; 2014-2018) were interviewed about career-related events transpiring from graduate studies to present, allowing exploration on how PHT contextualizes their shared experiences. Planned happenstance career inventory (PHCI) enumerated planned happenstance skill (PHS) scores. Total PHS was referenced 527 times across 12 interviews. Of the PHS references, curiosity established highest incidence (154 references, 29%), optimism (132 references, 25%), flexibility (101 references, 19%), risk-taking (85 references, 16%), and persistence (55 references, 10%) and 43 distinct happenstance events were documented. In addition, social networking (52 references) arose as an emergent code and was divided into internal networking (28 references, 54%) and external networking (24 references, 46%). Application of the five-point PHCI scale revealed: curiosity (4.4±0.3; mean±SD), flexibility (3.6±0.7), persistence (4.4±0.3), optimism (4.3±0.4), and risk-taking (4.1±0.5). Curiosity had the strongest association with happenstance event incidence. Social networking was a key substituent of PHT not yet described in the literature. Educational practices incorporating PHT concepts, with emphasis on curiosity, may provide graduates novel metacognitive skills needed to develop novel career paths.

Navigating learning worlds: Using digital tools to learn in physical and virtual spaces

This article explores the various ways that teachers and learners can navigate different learning worlds with the support of digital tools. Increasingly, teaching and learning takes place in spaces beyond the classroom, whether physical or virtual. Place, navigation and movement have all been recognised as important concepts in approaches to understanding how we learn in and across places. With our postgraduate cohort of in-service teachers from across New Zealand, we have been exploring forms of learning that engage in the exploration of other spaces, using a range of digital tools. Google Tour Builder has allowed creative global navigation in a virtual space, Google Expeditions has given teachers an opportunity to integrate virtual reality into their classrooms, and Actionbound has exposed them to the use and design of situated outdoor learning activities with geolocated augmented content. Our article is based around participant interactions on social media that express their responses and creativity using mobility in physical spaces and the navigation of virtual spaces. Based on these interactions, we reflect on the nature of pedagogy in technology-redefined activities that involve senses of both place and navigation, structuring our analysis along two continua of physical accessibility and the extent of world knowledge.

Teaching the principles of safe prescribing to a mixed profession postgraduate cohort: program development.

BackgroundPrescribing medicines is a complex task. A robust prerequisite curriculum that enables the efficient and consistent training of safe and effective prescribers is important. Despite differing prescribing contexts and professional attributes, the core elements of safe and effective prescribing relevant to all prescribers can be identified. This article describes the development process and content of a training program for safe prescribing, which was designed for a mixed cohort of allied health professionals in Queensland, Australia.MethodsThe allied health prescribing training program was designed to align with national standards for prescribing and competencies for safe prescribing. International training programs, for nonmedical prescribing, were examined to inform the program development. Content was delivered by experienced prescribers from a range of professions. The inaugural cohort was surveyed before and after training to ascertain their confidence to prescribe.ResultsA training program for allied health prescribers was developed and delivered to enable the implementation of a state-sponsored research trial in Queensland public facilities. The program consisted of two modules (the second of which is described in this article) complemented by a mandatory period of supervised workplace learning. Remote blended learning, comprising online prerecorded lectures, self-directed learning, teleconference seminars, and a 2-day on-campus intensive residential, was used to deliver content. A total of 19 allied health professionals (12 physiotherapists and 7 pharmacists) completed the program that equipped them to begin a prescribing trial within their specific practice settings. Post module completion, 90% of the cohort felt confident to prescribe for patients in their practice area.ConclusionProgram development and delivery were challenging, requiring attention to both the needs of each profession and those of the individual practitioner who was required to apply generic prescribing principles to their specific practice setting. Further refinement of content, delivery, assessment, and resource allocation is required for future cohorts.

Using Audio for Summative Assessment Feedback: Experiences of Work-Based Postgraduate Sport Coaching Students

Personalised, understandable and balanced feedback is well documented as having a transformational influence upon the academic, professional and personal learning of learners. However, an emerging literature base suggests traditional forms of written feedback may fail to sufficiently engage and empower high numbers of modern-day higher education students. In recent times, academics have been encouraged to consider alternative ways of producing and delivering high-quality feedback which addresses assessment marking criteria, indicates how well students are understanding new material, recommends how future performance may be acted upon and improved, provides constructive criticism when necessary, plus strengthens students’ capacities to self-regulate their own work. Over the past decade, across wide-ranging HE disciplines, university student cohorts have warmly embraced receiving audio feedback as an effective way for providing expert guidance, justifying grades, enhancing motivation to learn confidently and autonomously plus feeding forward. However, current understanding regards its effectiveness in nurturing student achievement is based predominantly upon research employing descriptive quantitative methodologies with full-time undergraduate cohorts. Distinctive aspects of this unique study, focusing on work-based postgraduate sports students, include going beyond simplistically evaluating if audio was considered “superior” or “inferior” than traditional written feedback. Employing semi-structured qualitative interviews, this study explored initial emotional-responsiveness, resulting satisfaction and engagement plus consequent impact upon professional-practice of eight part-time postgraduate sport coaching students who received audio feedback for the first time during the final year of a sport coaching Masters degree at a North of England University. Findings provide evidence to inform future feedback policy that may be more appropriate for meeting the academic capabilities, needs and motivations of future work-based postgraduate cohorts. Recommendations and guidelines for supporting the re-tooling and professional development needs of academic and support staff across the sector are also presented.

A Double Take: The practical and ethical dilemmas of teaching the visual method of photo elicitation

This paper advocates the teaching of photo elicitation in higher education as avaluable data collection technique and draws on our experience of teaching this visual method across two consecutive postgraduate cohorts. Building on previous work(Watt & Wakefield, 2014) and based on a former concern rega ‘risky‘ the topic area of a photo elicitation project for the second year group. The paper compares and contrasts the effects of this change through student and tutor reflections. In Cohort 1, (year one) although the reflections of some of the students gave us cause for concern, the work produced was exceptionally creative and of an excellent standard. The work produced by the following year, Cohort 2, was of much lower quality, in the main lacked creativity which was supported by studentreflection that similarly lacked depth or insight. In comparing and contrasting the two cohorts we discuss the effect of the topic change in potentially affecting student engagement, creativity and quality of work. In taking what pedagogically, we perceived as a less risky topic area, we discuss the potential this had on stifling creativity and student engagement concluding that ours should serve as a cautionary tale that there is a need to be careful in what we wish for; a less risky topic equated to less risky work and affected student engagement.

Pharmacy Students' Approaches to Learning in Undergraduate and Graduate Entry Programs

To compare longitudinal data with previous cross-sectional data regarding Australian undergraduate pharmacy students' approaches to learning, and explore the differences in approaches to learning between undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts. Longitudinal, repeated measures design using a validated self-report survey instrument were used to gather data. Undergraduate students' preferences for meaning directed, undirected, and reproduction-directed approaches to learning displayed the same pattern across the 2 studies; however, application-directed scores increased significantly in the second half of the undergraduate degree program. Commencing postgraduate students' approaches to learning were similar to finishing undergraduate students, and this group was significantly more oriented towards meaning-directed learning compared to undergraduate students. Pharmacy students' maturation in approach to their learning was evident and this bodes well for pharmacists' engaging in life-long learning and capacity to work in increasingly complex health settings.

Teaching Consumer Demographics to Marketing Students

This paper reports on an initiative to incorporate consumer demographics—techniques and concepts that are not traditionally part of the curriculum of marketing students—into a second year consumer behaviour subject, for an undergraduate marketing degree, and also into related post-graduate study. It addresses three topics: (1) the position of demographics and demographic techniques in the field of consumer behaviour, and more generally in marketing; (2) approaches to the study of consumer behaviour; and (3) the authors’ recommended approach to teaching consumer demographics and behaviour. The authors’ views are informed by their experience teaching 15 undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts.

Measuring postgraduate cohort throughput: A case study

The need to improve the success rate of students in South African universities is widely regarded as a national priority. Measuring this success is, however, more difficult. Although the NPHE sets some benchmarks for system performance, there is currently no indicator set for longitudinal student performance. This article reports on a study done into postgraduate throughput performance at one institution. The article examines the terminology adopted in the study, and reports general trends found in the data. The question of the length of time to graduation that should be examined when studying throughput data is examined, and the throughput ‘norms' per degree-type, for this institution during the time period studied are reported. It is hoped that publication of this case study will contribute to debates regarding the development of sector understandings of the topic. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 22 (3) 2008: pp. 725-738

Postgraduate research success: communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors and online communities

Traditionally, supervisors work with students on an individual basis and postgraduate development programmes are run on site. However, with increasing numbers of part‐time and international students, supervisory relationships are likely to be conducted at a distance as students study alongside other commitments. Isolation can often be a key feature for many postgraduates, whether based in the same institution as the supervisor and more particularly for international students or those studying at a distance. It can also be an issue for their supervisors. However, in this age of electronic communication, interactions at a distance should be able to be at least as robust as many of those conducted face to face. More broadly, the international research community is something generally cited as the context for research work, supervision, study and publication more generally. Entry firstly into the university academic community, and then into the larger global research community can be enabled, we would argue, by the support of communities of practice from the outset of postgraduate students’ and supervisors’ interactions. In this context, considerable numbers of international postgraduates at Anglia Ruskin University (UK) and their supervisors are being effectively supported through three innovations which build institutionally related communities of practice: (1) Guardian supervisors work with the students on research development programmes, with accompanying meetings organised during and round programme workshops, which focus throughout on strategies of meta‐learning. Subsequently they support students’ work at a distance with emails, and webcam correspondence. (2) PhD students are empowered to develop mutual, critically focused support for each other’s work through the enhanced use of the cohort in the compulsory research development workshops and through ongoing discussion lists, self‐help groups and symposia. (3) Supervisors of international postgraduates are supported as a community of practice through the revision of online supervisory discussion and development. This paper is based on action research carried out with current and graduate students, guardian supervisors and supervisors as collaborators to explore the rationale, problems, practices and the richness of the experience of working with a system which fosters communities of practice, involving guardian supervisors, distance supervisors and postgraduate cohorts.