Activity Teaching Adolescent Health project

Summary

The Adolescent Health and Wellbeing Impact Assessment draws together two methodologies to offer a qualitative, narrative-based exploration of the impact(s) of one postgraduate course at the University of Melbourne, while visually showing this work within an emerging interactive online data map of the life and work of our University (UMPC). The Learning and Teaching pilot was funded by the Centre for Adolescent Health through Hamdbury philanthropic funding.

The focus for this exploration is the University of Melbourne's postgraduate courses in Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, through MDHS, and is funded by the Centre for Adolescent Health.

Researchers included the course coordinator (MDHS) and a team from the eScholarship Research Centre, who specialise in information management and data analytics. Thus, this inquiry was both substantive and methodological - testing what is possible.

Methodologically aligned with (social-sciences-informed) participatory and action research traditions, the project aims were to 1) enhance the educators' insights about how the course is being used and is useful in the world, and so; 2) generating the kinds of knowledge regularly requested by potential students, industry partners and broader communities of practice; while at the same time and with a focus on methodology 3) testing an externally focused model of impact assessment within the University's learning and teaching.

The project generated a series of publicly available stories about specific course contributions to their subsequent professional activity. Through the data model and the related online system, these stories will be accessed by a range of audiences.

The outcomes of this project will enable a better understanding of the program by Adolescent Health and Wellbeing and the impact this has made into various aspect of young people's health and wellbeing across the community. The research has also provided information to stakeholder groups and drawn their insights into informing the teaching and learning development of the course. This research will allow us to better communicate with potential students about who does the course, where they go in their careers and what they achieve.

Created: 27 November 2018, Last modified: 20 August 2019