Acting on PhD student feedback to create new learning resources

Angela NewtonDan Pullinger

In today’s workshop

• New 2011/12 PhD workshops–What we created–Student feedback–Future activities

• First steps in PhD teaching–Student feedback

• Over to you–Group work

2005 - format for workshops

What’s worrying you?

• Discussion activity in workshop 1–Threw up more and more challenging questions–Topics not covered in either workshop

• Conclusion?–Change the workshops!*

*Teacher feedback on issues raised by attendees was also taken into account

Over to you

• How would you respond to these student ‘worries’?• In your group, devise a learning activity that addresses the

problems• Use the resources on your table to show & describe how it

would work

• You have 15 minutes!

Quotes 1

• Is this paper worthwhile/valid?• How to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant literature

• When papers say contradictory things, which do you trust?

• How to filter “un-useful” information

Quotes 2

• How do I get full-text scientific papers online?• I often worry there's crucial papers out there I don't know are there...

• How do I know when to stop looking for information?• Uni doesn’t have subscriptions to useful papers/journals – I don’t want to pay too much

• [How do I find] unpublished and ongoing work?• Some papers can’t be accessed online

Quotes 3

• How to make selections of what is important in a vast number of research sources?

• Which of the articles is most important?• How can I know this work is significant?• How do you find/know papers that are the most cited/respected, i.e. people who really know their stuff

• How to check the “top rating” research in certain areas?• Credibility of authors?• What order should I read the literature in?

Quotes 4

• How do I extract the important information [from a paper]?

• Organised reading – by theme / topic?• I get distracted & find “irrelevant information” interesting too

• How to distinguish what is essential to read from what is not

• Choosing the most relevant papers to read• Reading methods – don’t want to read all papers from beginning to end

2011 - format for workshops

How we responded to the feedback

• New activities integrating academic skills–Critical analysis–Research information landscape–Bibliometrics–Reading and note-taking strategies

Learning Development, University of Plymouth

Critical analysis

What are bibliometrics?

• A variety of statistical measures used to quantify research• Often make use of citation counts• Relate to journals• Relate to researchers

– individuals or groups

Which authors are the most important/influential?

• How it works: h-index, or Hirsch index–A scholar with an index of h has published h papers, each of

which has been cited by others at least h times.

• You have a go:–Search for the h-index for the lead authors of the articles you

have found–What do you think is a ‘good’ h-index score?–Will the h-index be a useful tool for your research?–What are the pros and cons of the h-index?

3 different ways to read

Text mapping

2011/12 students liked

• H-index, how to create groups in EndNote, critical analysis of papers

• How to determine influence and impact of authors, journals and articles

• Ideas about best ways to take notes• Factors which determine the importance of a piece of work• Idea of text-mapping - good way to think about and internalise ideas

2011/12 students disliked

• Reading - skim, scan, close - too basic• Did not really see how bibliometrics help to prioritise literature for my subject

• Not enough explanation of reading strategies• It didn't give the magic answer to solve all my reading problems! (high expectation maybe!)

• roll of paper scroll - impractical

What will you do next?

• Change the way I choose references. Use mind-mapping

• Put some effort into learning EndNote. Text mapping• Start using an explicit framework for my notes, including a section on how this article specifically can enhance my argument (to help draw strands together).

What will you do next?

• Rearrange my work• Be more structured about which articles I select, using citation and impact factors

• Now understand I'm a more visual person & will use text mapping

• Change my note-taking techniques• Buy coloured pens, mindmap and use RSS feeds

Future plans

• Rebalance parts of each workshop: –More reading & note-taking–Change emphasis for bibliometrics

• Long-term student impact survey• Animate the research information landscape slide• Video input featuring academic staff• EndNote vs. Mendeley • Create a skills collection