Bringing together time, space and sociomateriality has remained largely underexploredin health professional education. Recognised as a meaningful unit of activity byparticipating practitioners, a timespace is the place where and the time span when anactivity occurs. Sociomateriality focuses on exploring different ways in which peopleand materials come together to produce practice. Using the sociomaterial timespaceapproach can help to better understand practice, its complexity and constantly evolvingnature. A structural unit of analysis, timespace shapes not only how differently practice isorganised and functions (practice variability) but also what outcomes of care and learningcan be achieved within it. This paper defines a sociomaterial timespace, its agency andrepertoires of practice, purpose and enactment and summarises key methodologicalimplications for future research.
Background: Assessment tasks in health professional education (HPE) risk becoming outdated if they remain static. This study aimed to quantify the rate and magnitude of assessment renewal in Australian health professional teaching programs (HPTPs)—programs that provide educational qualifications to health professional educators, which are likely to reflect best practice in educational processes—and to explore the factors that influenced assessment renewal, thereby establishing foundational benchmarks for the pre-entry HPE sector and a platform for future research into renewal practices. Methods: HPTPs were selected as our sample as they were considered most likely to represent best practice. Relevant Australian qualifications were identified from official university sources. Assessments for each university subject were compared as delivered in 2018 and 2023. Differences were quantified. ANOVA and Fisher’s exact test were used to test for association between rates of change and subject delivery mode/delivery institution. Results: There were 69 university subjects with matched assessment details in 2018 and 2023. Altogether, 403 assessments were reviewed, 205 from 2018 and 198 from 2023. During this time, 50.7% (35/69) of subjects had their assessments modified, with 34.8% (24/69) modified in a major or complete fashion (>20% change). There were significant differences between institutions in the likelihood of assessment renewal (p < 0.001). Despite an increase in the number of subjects delivered online (54.9% to 75.6%), no association was found between transitioning to online delivery and the likelihood of assessment change (p = 0.245). Conclusion: Approximately half of all assessments were revised in Australian HPTPs between 2018 and 2023, and notable differences in renewal practices were evident between institutions. Further in-depth exploration of renewal processes will ultimately help to guide best-practice recommendations.
Introduction: Classroom-based experiential roleplay (CER) within postgraduate allied health degrees intends to support the development of professional practice skills through activities including demonstrations of methods, peer-simulated client–therapist interactions and problem-based clinical scenarios. Despite CER being widespread in higher education, the value students place on these learning tasks is less understood. This study aimed to better understand students’ perception of the value of engaging in CER (if any) and whether student characteristics influence their perceptions. Methods: This study is a mixed-methods survey design. Multiple-choice and free-text questions focused on personal characteristics, dimensions of personality, learning-related emotions and perceived value of CER. Statistical analysis modelled the dependent variable in terms of selected explanatory variables. A thematic analysis was undertaken with the free-text responses. Both data sets were then compared and combined. Results: Postgraduate allied health students from four disciplines at The University of Melbourne participated in this study. We received 72 completed surveys (22.6% response rate). Statistical modelling indicated that students who value CER are more likely to: (1) feel less nervous about participating, (2) feel more confident to participate and (3) believe the task is important for their learning. Qualitative themes revealed ways students actively manage challenging learning emotions, aspects of the learning environment that can support or undermine student confidence and advice for peers engaging in CER tasks. Conclusions: The convergent mixed-methods analysis proposes that educators in allied health degrees “plan for challenge with care” in the design and facilitation of CER in higher education.
