International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 2, Number 2, July 2008
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to current issues pageResearch Article
Excerpt
Using Scholarly Research in Course Redesign: Teaching to Engage
Students with Authentic Disciplinary Practices
Reflective practice has been adopted by many teachers, including
dissertation advisors who provide 1:1 teaching of research students.
This paper discusses issues arising from our use of qualitative data
analysis software (QDAS) for reflective practice and provides an analysis
of the thematic coding and word/pattern searches of feedback given to
postgraduate research students. We subjected written feedback provided
by one dissertation advisor to three different analyses: thematic, text-string
and text-pattern search. We found that use of QDAS in a thematic analysis
of feedback provides new insights by indicating areas of strength and
areas for improvement. Text and pattern searches are more useful in
flagging students with specific learning issues.
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Full ArticleBios
Kathy Ahern
School of Nursing and Midwifery
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
k.ahern@uq.edu.au
I am a senior lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery. I taught
high school English for a number of years before moving into university
education. As a research methodologist, I have worked in several university
departments, including medicine, sociology and nursing. I currently
teach sociology to undergraduate nurses and am dissertation advisor
to five Ph.D. research students. I have successfully advised over twenty
research dissertations to completion using both qualitative and quantitative
methods; and I’ve won two awards for postgraduate research supervision.
My current research involves investigating the actual (as opposed to
theoretical) risks and benefits for participants involved in qualitative
research.
Website: http://www.nursing-midwifery.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=27890&pid=27566
Fiona Hawthorne
Bond University
Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia
fiona_hawthorne@bond.edu.au
I am an Assistant Professor of Clinical Education for the Faculty of
Health Sciences at Bond University. I started my career as a registered
nurse, teaching nursing at various universities before moving into prenatal
genetic counselling. Currently, I coordinate the clinical placements
undertaken by medical students, acting as their mentor and academic
supervisor. In 2007, I was awarded a Bob and June Prickett Churchill
Fellowship to undertake post-doctoral work in perinatal palliative care.
My current research involves examining the experiences of accessing
perinatal palliative care in the UK and US.
Website: http://www.bond.edu.au/contact/profile.asp?s_id=1021