Co-Designed Technology-Enhanced Learning: Building Workforce Capability

Aim

To efficiently and effectively build workforce capability that supports high-quality person-centred care using technology-enhanced learning.

Outcomes

• Co-designed technology-enhanced learning (TEL) courses on hearing assessment in young children for audiology learners, as well as interprofessional learners were published on iLearn and are now available to university Audiology programs and health services nationally and internationally.
• The co-design techniques of focus group interviews and qualitative analysis were used to define the learning needs of end-users.
• End-user evaluations of the initial courses validated the co-design methods and provided evidence for endorsement and improvement of the courses.
• A scalable TEL clinical training model based on the project outcomes has been developed with the aim of efficiently creating co-designed TEL training courses, with broad applications in health.

Background

The integration of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) into student and professional education and training in the health professions enables the efficient and accessible delivery of consistent training programs that build workforce capability, enhance high quality practice and support learner wellbeing. While TEL is widely used in the health professions, TEL training courses must still be co-designed to satisfy their learning needs and preferences.

TEL is well-suited to supporting foundational learning for specialised techniques in the health professions as it is accessible and efficient, provides consistent education, and enables visual demonstration of techniques performed by clinicians with patients. In audiology, the gold standard technique for assessing hearing in young children aged 6 months to 5 years of age, conditioned behavioural hearing assessment, requires specialised techniques. Mastering the conditioned behavioural hearing assessment for young children is critical, as they represent a significant proportion of the patient demographic at the QCH Audiology Department. Audiology students and graduates often have limited prior experience in paediatric hearing assessment, and providing foundational learning during clinical placements is inefficient and limits the effectiveness of hands-on clinical opportunities.  Furthermore, upskilling interprofessional collaborators in ENT, paediatrics, and speech pathology is highly beneficial for improving paediatric audiological understanding and integrated care, however, opportunities for this are rare.

We identified a need for training courses, for both audiology and interprofessional learners, on conditioned behavioural hearing assessment in young children that are accessible, evidence-based, learner-centred, co-designed and focused on value-based health care. There were no existing courses that fulfilled these requirements, and no existing models that could be directly applied to creating TEL courses with these specifications.

The specific objectives of this collaborative research project between QCH Audiology and The University of Queensland were:

• to investigate the perspectives of audiology students and paediatric audiologists on learning needs for training on assessing hearing in young children
• to develop co-designed TEL courses on assessing hearing in young children, targeting the specific learning needs of audiology learners (audiology students, graduate audiologists, and audiologists new to paediatrics) and interprofessional learners.

Discussion

Reflections on outcomes and processes

There was a high level of satisfaction with the courses overall. 100% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the courses provide a valuable learning foundation. Across questions, 90-100% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that the courses provide adequate content and format. The results also indicated that there were significant issues for the initial courses with access/navigation and video quality, and course functionality was optimised accordingly in the final phase.

The evidence-based TEL courses provide a high-quality learning experience for audiology and interprofessional learners, supporting workforce capability building and enhancing value-based, person-centred, integrated care. The use of TEL enables accessible training in regional, rural and remote areas, and embedded governance for tracking completion.
The high level of end-user satisfaction provided validation for the co-design approach. While qualitative designs are time consuming, they provide a wealth of information for tailoring the courses to the specific learning needs and preferences of end-users, likely saving time overall given the limited number of required revisions. The evaluation of the draft courses provided a valuable opportunity to optimise the content and format and enabled the detection and resolution of key issues regarding access and video streaming.

The iLearn platform provides the opportunity to create TEL courses and has many features that can be utilised to tailor courses to learning needs. A significant amount of training and on-the-project learning is required to utilise the iLearn platform and features, as well as to conduct the video filming, editing and production external to iLearn. This was underestimated in the planning phase and led to a significant delay in delivering the project. While there are many resources available that support video production and iLearn course development, there is currently no 'recipe' to efficiently create clinical courses. Efficient clinical course development would be supported by the development of specific models and resources for using iLearn.

Development of a TEL clinical training model

The research and development outcomes of this project can be leveraged to create a scalable training model that can be applied broadly across the health professions. We have developed such a training model based on the four research phases used to complete this project. The model will be supported by 1) a TEL course development manual which provides a step by step guide to the technology processes for filming and building courses, and 2) a protocol manual to guide the definition of learning needs and course evaluation. Both manuals are currently in development.

Next steps

• Continued course learner support and continuous quality improvement based on feedback.
• Further model and resource development.
• Application and extension of the model to the development of further TEL courses in audiology clinical practice areas (e.g. paediatric cochlear implant programming and assessment), which will include co-design with both consumers and learner end-users using the methods applied in Phase 1 of the presented research project, and will include model validation and refinement.
• Exploration of the use of a revenue system (learner payment) to fund the ongoing development of audiology TEL courses.

References

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77-101.