Ainscough, Louise - University of Queensland - School of Biomedical Sciences

研究领域

Developing biology self efficacy: Self-efficacy is the strength of one’s belief in their ability to perform a given task or achieve a certain outcome. Self-efficacy falls between knowledge and action. An individual may have the skills to perform a task; however, a lack of confidence regarding ability can decrease performance or result in task avoidance. Academic self-efficacy has been correlated with both academic performance and persistence with study. Our research has shown that biology self-efficacy in first year students increases while students undertake a large biology course. Prior high school biology and chemistry experience increase self-efficacy at the beginning of semester, but do not predict self-efficacy at the end of semester. Interestingly, male students in our study were more self-efficacious than female students at both the beginning and end of semester. Some students also reported inaccurate self-efficacy beliefs - feeling over-confident or under-confident in their ability. These inaccurate self-efficacy beliefs may impact on study efforts, resilience and academic grades. Interventions to help students calibrate their self-efficacy beliefs may therefore be useful. Self-regulated learning: Self-regulated learning consists of the thoughts, feeling and actions that students utilise in order to achieve a learning goal. Self-regulated learners plan, set goals, choose appropriate study activities and reflect on past performance to maximise their learning. Our research team has developed 'meta-learning tasks' to help students reflect on their learning and study strategies. Recently, we have also developed online collaborative meta-learning tasks, where students share their strategies for learning through a group blog. The majority of our students report that the meta-learning tasks have a positive impact on their learning. Our research team is also analysing the student responses to meta-learning task to learn more about how students regulate their learning and how this correlates with their academic achievement, resilience, and understanding of complex concepts. Authentic assessment: The perceived relevance of a course to a student’s career is an important factor affecting student motivation. One method for enhancing the relevance of a course is to introduce authentic assessment. An assessment task is considered to be authentic if it requires skills that would be performed in the workplace or community and results in the creation of a product that has value beyond the classroom. I have recently completed two projects that evaluate new authentic assessment items. The first project investigates whether an information sheet assignment is an effective and authentic means to improve the perceived relevance of physiology to occupational therapy. The second project investigates an online role play activity where nursing students demonstrate their understanding of pathophysiology through dialogue with a doctor and a patient. This authentic assessment item is designed to test understanding of pathophysiology as well as developing communication skills required within the nursing workplace.

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Colthorpe, Kay, Zimbardi, Kirsten, Ainscough, Louise and Anderson, Stephen (2015) Know thy student! combining learning analytics and critical reflections to increase understanding of students’ self-regulated learning in an authentic setting. Journal of Learning Analytics, 2 1: 134-155. Craft, Judy and Ainscough, Louise (2014) Development of an electronic role-play assessment initiative in bioscience for nursing students. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52 2: 172-184. doi:10.1080/14703297.2014.931241