Developing and evaluating online resources to enhance learning in the workplace

Abstract

Resources produced by the FDTL Phase 4 project, Making Practice Based Learning Work, aimed to make health care practitioners more effective in their role at supporting & supervising students in the workplace across a range of healthcare disciplines. The project’s original work aimed to: • Identify and document good practice on preparing health care practitioners for their educational role. • Develop learning materials for practitioners. • Disseminate online materials across health and social care communities. • Evaluate online materials for enhancing role of practice educators. Subsequent institutional funding was used to develop the project’s original set of learning materials for use in a non-health context. The Sports Sciences programmes at Northumbria require students to undertake a work-based placement, and the programme of Sport Management was chosen as one for which learning materials could be developed. Three of the original project’s learning material themes were selected for development: Assessment, Reflection and Working with Others. This session will cover factors influencing the nature of the online resources that were developed plus the evaluation of the resources based upon student (n = 30) data collected using an online questionnaire, and informal feedback from staff. Key findings indicated most students using the materials found they were accessible and useable. Enhancement of learning was also perceived by 17 of the 21 students that used the materials. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the theme most students accessed was Assessment. However, almost one third of the students (n = 9) did not access the materials, with feedback suggesting a need to explore alternative ways to raise student and employer engagement with the materials. This is viewed as particularly important when transferring materials to contexts outside profession-based courses such as health.