Ready for the real world?

Janet Hargreaves, Susan Bond, Paul Dagg, Benji Dawson, Blake

Kendrick, Carrie Mitchell

University of Huddersfield

We started with a problem…

• How do we assure our students are competent to practice?

• So we developed CIPA, an online, interactiveself-assessment tool.

(Scan the QR code to see CIPA.)

We realised we had another problem…

• …how do we assure our students are prepared for practice?

• So we developed P-PA, also an online, interactive self-assessment tool.

(Scan the QR code to see P-PA.)

What is P-PA?

• Preparation for Practice Assessment– (pron. PIPPA)

• An online self assessment tool for students, tutors/mentors and qualified professionals

P-PA was a collaboration between:

• Students from Health and Social Care, Computing, Business;

• Health and Social Care academics; • Health professionals and technologists.

Impact of P-PA

Factors for success

• Reward and recognition including payment (for the students) [Millard and Hargreaves 2012]

• Not part of assessment - no pressure to compete or risk of failure [Orr 2010]

• Mutual respect for skills and contribution - shared learning [after Vygotsky 1978]

• Incremental development (practice research-style design) [Davies et al, 2007])

References

• Davies, P., Hamilton, M & James, K. (2007) Maximising the impact of practitioner research National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy London: National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy.

• Millard , L. & Hargreaves , J. (2014) ‘Creatively employing funding to support innovation’ Innovations in Education and Teaching International . DOI:10.1080/14703297.2012.760775

• Orr,S. (2010)Collaborating or fighting for marks? Students’ experience of group work assessment in the creative arts. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 35(3) 301-313

• Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M Cole, V John-Steiner, S Scribner and E Souberman, eds), Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.