Connected Learning administer an expedited ethics approval process for Tertiary Education research-related projects.
This list compiles some details on approved projects, where the authors have agreed for the project details to be shared.
Connected Learning administer an expedited ethics approval process for Tertiary Education research-related projects.
This list compiles some details on approved projects, where the authors have agreed for the project details to be shared.
Researchers: Trudy Ambler, Ian Solomonides, and Andrew Smallridge
Title: Exploring the features of the block mode approach to curriculum at Victoria University (VU) that make a positive contribution to learning and teaching in the First Year College (FYC)
Aims: To explore student and staff experiences of the ‘Block Mode’ approach to teaching and learning in the First Year College (FYC) at Victoria University (VU). To evaluate the features of the block mode approach to teaching and learning that make a positive contribution to the overall learning experience for students and staff.
Researchers: Daniel Loton, Cameron Stein, Marianne Samulis, Kaye Cleary, Gayani Samarawickrema, Sally Gauci
Title: Quantifying first-year block curricula: charting changes in learning outcomes, assessment tasks, student output, and their relationships with student assessment outcomes.
Aims: This study will use existing institutional data to examine characteristics of block curricula, particularly what had changed when units are redesigned from traditional units to block delivery.
Researchers: Daniel Loton, Maxwell Winchester
Title: The Effect of the Block: Establishing the uplifting effect of the block using advanced statistics
Aims: This project will apply HLM and ML-SEM to VU institutional data to compare first-year commencing students outcomes in Semester 1 of 2017 to Semester 1 of 2018, in order to account for the nested nature, and test whether the model holds across different student subgroups.
Researcher: Gabriele Sorrentino
Title: Delivering a single unit in block mode to students who have completed a semester of four concurrent units
Aims:
Researchers: Rudi Klein, Kate Kelly, Puspha Sinnayah and Maxwell Winchester
Title: Repeating Students’ Perceptions of The First-Year Model
Aims: To understand comparative perceptions of the traditional teaching model with the FYM by asking repeating students who have experienced both models their perceptions.
Researchers: Kathleen Raponi, Gayani Samarawickrema
Title: Evaluation of the Block Mode Delivery of BLB1101 Australian Legal System in Context
Aims: To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the design structure and to explore the impact on the learners undertaking the unit and the academics delivering the unit.
Researchers: Gayani Samarawickrema, Tristan Galloway, Kathleen Raponi
Title: Participatory evaluation of the block mode design of the First Year of the LLB
Aims: To critically reflect on the experiences and lessons learned in the design of the block delivery of the First Year units of the Bachelor of Laws degree, to inform improvements to the delivery of the units.
Researchers: Jen Jackson, Kathy Tangalakis, Zoran Endekov, Peter Hurley, Ian Solomindes, Peter Noonan
Title: Inside the Black Box of the Block Model: First-Year STEM
Aims: This research will examine why Victoria University’s (VU) Block Model is delivering better outcomes for first-year students. Focussing on equity group students undertaking STEM related units, this research will utilise a mixed method approach to investigate how aspects of the Block Model have changed teaching and learning experiences and improved students’ outcomes.
Researchers: Kaye Cleary, Gayani Samarawickrema, Michelle Prawer, Olga Gavrilenko, Bruce Herbert, Daniel Loton
Title: Effects of the Block as an innovative pedagogical approach - extending connections: professional learning for staff, student engagement and student results
Aims: To investigate the impact of being a student in an innovative mode of study. In particular, the study will investigate (1) the incidental professional learning that occurs, and the extent that this experience prompts changes in practice, and how it might affect the collaboration and student engagement of ‘regular’ students in this innovative mode of study; and (2) factors that influence student engagement in and intensive mode of study.
Researcher: Edward Lock
Title: Constructing the First Year College: An analysis of organisational change at Victoria University, 2016-2019
Aims: The project aims to:
Researcher: Trudy Ambler
Title: Professional Learning – Needs Assessment
Aims: In the context of the new block mode approach to learning and teaching in the FYC this small-scale research project aims to:
Researchers: Edward Lock, Lannie O'Keefe, Thomas Yeagar
Title: Fit for purposes? Evaluating the success of transition-focused teaching under Victoria University’s First Year Model
Aims: The project aims to:
Researchers: Mengbi Li & Kaye Cleary
Title: Career Identification by First Year Building Students
Aims: To determine the efficacy of these initiatives in engaging students to consider, consolidate or clarify career aspirations.
Researchers: Kate Kelly & Edward Lock
Title: Improving Employability Teaching Under Block Mode Delivery: An Evaluation of Students’ Expectations About and Experiences of Employability Teaching in Higher Education
Aim: To investigate how VU students can best be empowered to achieve success in a knowledge society.
Researcher: Kate Kelly
Title: Investigating the Effectiveness of Online Teaching for a Practical Based Communications Unit: A Comparison Between Face to Face Teaching and Remote Learning
Aims: To investigate overall grades and student experience for those completing a practical based communications unit online in comparison to those who completed it face to face
Researchers: Trish McCluskey, Kaye Cleary, Gayani Samarawickrema, Dan Loton, Tomas Krcho, Michael Sturmey
Title: The experience of transition to remote learning in VU Higher Education: Educator perspectives
Aims: To Investigate staff experiences of the transition to remote delivery and the major factors that facilitated or hindered the transition, including:
Researchers: Kathleen Raponi, Gayani Samarawickrema
Title: Evaluation of Online Teaching in First Year Law Units
Aims: To investigate this online and remote delivery four-week offer of a Bachelor of Laws, Legal Service or Criminal Justice course to:
Researchers: Dr Daniel Loton & Cameron Stein
Title: Ghost Students in the Block: Exploring the characteristics, study intentions, reasons for non-engagement, and institutional responses, to commencing students who remain enrolled but do not participate in the VU First Year Model
Aims:
Researchers: Cameron Stein & Dr Daniel Loton
Title: Blocked In: Predicting and preventing attrition in the VU block model
Aims: To publish the development and results of statistical models that utilise big-data within VU to predict student failure and attrition in the block model; and the efforts of VU to intervene and support student success.
Researchers: Cameron Stein & Dr Daniel Loton
Title: A text-message based intervention to encourage engagement or withdrawal for students at-risk of failure
Aims: To determine whether a simple SMS-based informational intervention alter student behaviour with respect to enrolment choice or educational engagement.
Researchers: Puspha Sinnayah, Elizabeth Verghese, Sean Yan, Lucy Lu, Sally Gauci, Gayelene Boarman, Sharon Andrew
Title: An evaluation of different online and f2f strategies in a blended/active learning design to improve student engagement in Second Year Pathophysiology nursing and review of student transition from First Year Physiology to Second Year Pathophysiology units
Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness learning activities and Blended Learning/Active Learning implemented in block mode on the quality of student experience and staff capacity.
Researchers: Nicholas Tripodi & Maja Husaric
Title: First-year osteopathic students use and perceptions of Video-Based Learning (VBL) in a block-mode delivery’
Aims: Osteopathic students have previously reported positive experiences with VBL in a traditional semester model. It is the investigators aim to discover how these perceptions compare to students utilising the same VBL strategies in a block-mode format.
Researcher: Frances O’neil
Title: An investigation into the use of ‘required textbooks’ (print or e-book) in FYC block units.
Aims:
Researchers: Nicholas Tripodi, Ms Rebecca Wospil, Ms Kylie Fitzgerald
Title: Developing feedback literacy in first-year students
Aims: To develop learner’s: Understanding of the role of feedback in their development; Appreciation of what effective, quality feedback is; Understanding of when they are receiving feedback; Understanding of how to utilise feedback; and Capability to provide feedback to their peers that is constructive and actionable.
Researcher: Steven O’Bryan
Title: Quantifying student learning within the ‘zone of proximal development’: Application in an accelerated program.
Aims: To develop a novel method of assessing student learning in the zone of proximal development and apply it to an accelerated program.
Researchers: Kirsten Black, Sally Gauci, Karina Ireland
Title: Simulation-based learning using a silicone Episiotomy Simulation Tool for undergraduate midwifery students.
Aims: To introduce an affordable, validated and anatomically correct silicone model for the practice of episiotomy for undergraduate student midwives. The study also aims to determine to what extent the Episiotomy Simulation Tool can be used in intensive (block) mode delivery.
Researchers: Puspha Sinnayah, Elizabeth Verghese, Sean Yan, Lucy Lu, Sally Gauci, Gayelene Boarman, Sharon Andrew
Title: An evaluation of different online and f2f strategies in a blended/active learning design to improve student engagement in Second Year Pathophysiology nursing and review of student transition from First Year Physiology to Second Year Pathophysiology units
Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness learning activities and Blended Learning/Active Learning implemented in block mode on the quality of student experience and staff capacity.
Researchers: Susan Irvine & Kathy Tangalakis
Title: An exploratory study of undergraduate nursing students' experiences of group work
Aims: The project aims to:
Researcher: Maxwell Winchester
Title: An investigation of teaching format – does it influence class results and Student Evaluations?
Aims: To assess the success of changes to the teaching format of Introduction to Marketing (BHO1171) over recent years (including transition to block mode in FYC) and the effects of these changes on SEU and average grades achieved.
Researchers: Maxwell Winchester & Puspha Sinnayah
Title: An investigation of class results and Student Evaluations: investigating the effects of the teaching delivery changes
Aims: To assess the success of changes to the teaching format of various FYC units over recent years (including transition to block mode in FYC) and the effects of these changes on SEU, average class results achieved and completion rates.
Researchers: Nicholas Tripodi, Maja Husaric, Kate Kelly, Rebecca Wospil, Susan Johnston, Katherine Harkin, and Michael Fleischmann
Title: First-year students use and perceptions of three-dimensional printed (3DP) models as a predictor of success in anatomical assessment
Aims: To find out if the inclusion of three-dimensional printed (3DP) models in anatomy classes decreases first-year students perceived anxiety and enhances perceived anatomical confidence and performance in assessments.
Researchers: Rebecca Wospil, Nicholas Tripodi, Susan Johnston, Maja Husaric, Loretta Konjarski, Katherine Harkin
Title: First-year students perceptions of near-peer teaching using 3D printed anatomical models
Aims: The project aims to evaluate:
Researchers: Puspha Sinnayah, Rudi Klein, Gayathri Rajaraman, Sally Gauci
Title: An evaluation of different online and f2f strategies in a blended/active learning design to improve student engagement in Anatomy and Physiology
Aims: This project will evaluate the changes made to the online and face to face (f2f) mode by comparing 2017 units versus units converted to block mode for the FYC in 2018.
Researchers: Puspha Sinnayah, Rudi Klein, Gayathri Rajaraman, Maxwell Winchester, Kate Kelly, Suzanne Poliness
Title: Evaluating Anatomy support programs in their effectiveness in improving students’ engagement and learning during class time and their final outcomes in Functional Anatomy of the Trunk and Functional Anatomy of the Limbs.
Aims: The project aims to answer whether the use of OLASPs:
Researchers: Alison Ruth & Sally Gauci
Title: Exploring academic identity and fragmentation in the Block Model
Aims: To explore how disciplinary academics negotiate their identity as academics while participating in a university wide curriculum transformation – the Block Model. Academic identity is bound up in the way disciplinary academics enact their knowledge in teaching and learning environments. We will explore the ways that concentrating teaching into the block shifts the reflective practices that academics have traditionally employed.
Researchers: Tomas Krcho & Nikola Kalamir
Title: Educator’s View: Barriers, Challenges and Opportunities in Designing and Implementing Authentic Assessment on the VU Block
Aims: To reveal what Academic Staff at VU consider to be authentic assessment tasks and how these assumptions align with the exiting literature. It will further investigate what barriers, challenges, and opportunities academics experience in designing and implementing authentic assessment tasks in a 4-week Block delivery.
Researchers: Gayani Samarawickrema & Olga Gavrilenko
Title: Immersive professional learning in peer review using FeedbackFruits: A pilot study
Aims: To explore potential professional learning enabled by using FeedbackFruits for peer review and feedback in a summative assessment in AET4002 in the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education.
Researchers: Sidney Adams & Effy George
Title: Student perceptions of the environment
Aims: The project aims to:
This will be for the purpose of incorporating findings into teaching practice and the development of unit curriculum.