Peer Mentoring and Professionalism

Peer mentoring has been a success for everyone involved resulting in a ‘win-win-win’ situation for mentors, mentees and university schools and departments (Andrews and Clark, 2011). Mentors have the opportunity to develop key transferable skills such as communication and leadership, which in turn can enhance their employability opportunities. There is also potential to increase and develop social and academic confidence. For mentees the benefits include the opportunity to gain advice, encouragement and support during the transition period from school/college/work to university along with the opportunity to gain an insight into the stages of university life by learning the "rules of the game". Through peer mentor schemes University schools and departments are meeting the demand to support student success while assisting student transition and reducing attrition. This paper will focus on the peer mentor scheme set up in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast specifically the development of employability skills through company involvement in the scheme.

Equipping young people to engage with media driven science experiences: beyond science knowledge to science literacy and discerning consumers of news.

This paper reports on a study of a curricular intervention for pupils (age 10-13 years) in the UK aimed at supporting critical engagement with science based media reports. In particular the study focused on core elements of knowledge, skills and attitudes identified in previous studies that characterize critical consumers of science presented as news. This was an empirical study based on classroom observation. Data included responses from individual pupils, in addition video recording of group activity and intentional conversations between pupils and teachers were scrutinised. Analysis focused on core tasks relating to different elements of critical reading. Pupils demonstrated a grasp of questioning and evaluating text, however the capacity to translate this experience in support of a critical response to a media report with a science component is limited in assessing the credibility of text and as an element in critical reading.

Does video feedback analysis improve CPR performance in phase 5 medical students?

Background The use of simulation in medical education is increasing, with students taught and assessed using simulated patients and manikins. Medical students at Queen’s University of Belfast are taught advanced life support cardiopulmonary resuscitation as part of the undergraduate curriculum. Teaching and feedback in these skills have been developed in Queen’s University with high-fidelity manikins. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of video compared to verbal feedback in assessment of student cardiopulmonary resuscitation performance Methods Final year students participated in this study using a high-fidelity manikin, in the Clinical Skills Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. Cohort A received verbal feedback only on their performance and cohort B received video feedback only. Video analysis using ‘StudioCode’ software was distributed to students. Each group returned for a second scenario and evaluation 4 weeks later. An assessment tool was created for performance assessment, which included individual skill and global score evaluation. Results One hundred thirty eight final year medical students completed the study. 62 % were female and the mean age was 23.9 years. Students having video feedback had significantly greater improvement in overall scores compared to those receiving verbal feedback (p = 0.006, 95 % CI: 2.8–15.8). Individual skills, including ventilation quality and global score were significantly better with video feedback (p = 0.002 and p < 0.001, respectively) when compared with cohort A. There was a positive change in overall score for cohort B from session one to session two (p < 0.001, 95 % CI: 6.3–15.8) indicating video feedback significantly benefited skill retention. In addition, using video feedback showed a significant improvement in the global score (p < 0.001, 95 % CI: 3.3–7.2) and drug administration timing (p = 0.004, 95 % CI: 0.7–3.8) of cohort B participants, from session one to session two. Conclusions There is increased use of simulation in medicine but a paucity of published data comparing feedback methods in cardiopulmonary resuscitation training. Our study shows the use of video feedback when teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation is more effective than verbal feedback, and enhances skill retention. This is one of the first studies to demonstrate the benefit of video feedback in cardiopulmonary resuscitation teaching.

Seeing How it Sounds: Observation, Imitation and Improved Learning in Piano Playing

Research in various fields has shown that students benefit from teacher action demonstrations during instruction, establishing the need to better understand the effectiveness of different demonstration types across student proficiency levels. This study centres upon a piano learning and teaching environment in which beginners and intermediate piano students (N=48) learning to perform a specific type of staccato were submitted to three different (group exclusive) teaching conditions: audio-only demonstration of the musical task; observation of the teacher's action demonstration followed by student imitation (blockedobservation); and observation of the teacher's action demonstration whilst alternating imitation of the task with the teacher's performance (interleaved-observation). Learning was measured in relation to students' range of wrist amplitude (RWA) and ratio of sound and inter-sound duration (SIDR) before, during and after training. Observation and imitation of the teacher’s action demonstrations had a beneficial effect on students' staccato knowledge retention at different times after training: students submitted to interleaved-observation presented significantly shorter note duration and larger wrist rotation, and as such, were more proficient at the learned technique in each of the lesson and retention tests than students in the other learning conditions. There were no significant differences in performance or retention for students of different proficiency levels. These findings have relevant implications for instrumental music pedagogy and other contexts where embodied action is an essential aspect of the learning process.