Enhancing the student learning experience: Evaluating the impact of learning design on the student self-efficacy and assessment performance.

The scholarship of teaching and learning encompasses a broad array of educational outcomes.  These include student perception of their learning experience and the impact of teaching design on student learning.  In the higher education sector, there is increasing pressure to make learning relevant to the workplace.  Graduate attributes for degrees will include soft skills like 'lifelong learning' and 'communication skills'.  There is also an increasing tension between teaching content (what instructors want students to learn) and learning process (how students learn).  Typically STEM educators value content over process.  Understanding the motivation of students selecting physiology subjects to study could potentially provide insight into how best to design learning activities, and guide instructors in determining what students need to know.  Research projects in SoTL can be driven by student's individual interest but may include (but not limited to):

• Evaluation of the impact of feedback on student assessment results

• Development of tools to enhance student meta-learning (self-efficacy)

• Evaluation of learning design approaches on student outcomes

• Development and deployment of online or e-learning resources, and evaluation of their efficacy.

• Analysis of the internal and external factors that predict assessment performance.

Students who undertake projects in SoTL will develop a deeper knowledge in ways of learning. You will also develop research skills, particularly related to writing and designing survey instruments, qualitative analysis of survey results, as well as quantitative statistical analysis.  This project will be suitable for students who are interested in understanding the methodological and ethical issues associated with research on people. You will also deepen your understanding of physiology by simply asking the questions "how do we teach physiology?" and "how is physiology relevant to our real world experience?".