Lucy Mercer-Mapstone

Student Perceptions of Communication Skills in Undergraduate Science at an Australian Research-Intensive University.

Higher education institutions globally are acknowledging the need to teach communication skills. This study used the Science Student Skills Inventory to gain insight into how science students perceive the development of communication skills across the degree programme. Responses were obtained from 635 undergraduate students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science at an Australian research-intensive university. Students rated their perceptions of two communication skills, scientific writing and oral scientific communication, across the following indicators: importance of, and improvement in, developing communication skills; the extent to which communication skills were included and assessed in the degree; confidence in using communication skills; and belief of future use of communication skills. While the majority of students perceived both communication skills to be important and of use in the future, their perceptions of the extent to which those skills were included and assessed were less, with oral communication being included and assessed less than scientific writing skills. Significant differences among year levels were discerned for most indicators, signifying a lack of coherent opportunities for students to learn and develop these skills across year levels. Results are discussed through the lens of progressive development of complex learning outcomes, with suggested areas for curriculum development and future research.

Teaching Scientists to Communicate: Evidence-based assessment for undergraduate science education

Communication skills are one of five nationally recognised learning outcomes for an Australian Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. Previous evidence indicates that communication skills taught in Australian undergraduate science degrees are not developed sufficiently to meet the requirements of the modern-day workplace—a problem faced in the UK and USA also. Curriculum development in this area, however, hinges on first evaluating how communication skills are taught currently as a base from which to make effective changes. This study aimed to quantify the current standard of communication education within BSc degrees at Australian research-intensive universities. A detailed evidential baseline for not only what but also how communication skills are being taught was established. We quantified which communication skills were taught and assessed explicitly, implicitly, or were absent in a range of undergraduate science assessment tasks (n = 35) from four research-intensive Australian universities. Results indicate that 10 of the 12 core science communication skills used for evaluation were absent from more than 50% of assessment tasks and 77.14% of all assessment tasks taught less than 5 core communication skills explicitly. The design of assessment tasks significantly affected whether communication skills were taught explicitly. Prominent trends were that communication skills in tasks aimed at non-scientific audiences were taught more explicitly than in tasks aimed at scientific audiences, and the majority of group and multimedia tasks taught communication elements more explicitly than individual, or written and oral tasks. Implications for science communication in the BSc and further research are discussed.

Toward curriculum convergence for graduate learning outcomes: academic intentions and student experiences

Graduate learning outcomes in undergraduate science degrees increasingly are focussed on the development of transferrable skillsets. Research into, and comparisons of, the perceptions of students and academic staff on such learning outcomes has rarely been explored in science. This study used a quantitative survey to explore the perceptions of 640 undergraduate science students and 70 academics teaching into a Bachelor of Science degree program on the importance, the extent to which outcomes were included and assessed, the improvement and likely future use of science graduate learning outcomes. Analysis of findings shed light on potential pathways toward curriculum convergence by arguing the need for shared perspectives of academics and students on graduate learning outcomes and drawing on the planned-enacted-experienced curriculum model. Moving toward coherent curriculum planning that draws on both student and academic perspectives to achieve graduate learning outcomes is the key contribution of this study. Resulting recommendations include: the need to consider the development of each complex graduate learning outcome as distinct from other outcomes in both curricular and pedagogical approach, and the need for a programmatic framework for assessment practices to facilitate the constructive alignment of assessment with learning outcomes.

Core Skills for Effective Science Communication: A Teaching Resource for Undergraduate Science Education

Science communication is a diverse and transdisciplinary field and is taught most effectively when the skills involved are tailored to specific educational contexts. Few academic resources exist to guide the teaching of communication with non-scientific audiences for an undergraduate science context. This mixed methods study aimed to explore what skills for the effective communication of science with non-scientific audiences should be taught within the Australian Bachelor of Science. This was done to provide a basis from which to establish a teaching resource for undergraduate curriculum development. First, an extensive critique of academic literature was completed to distil the communication ‘skills’ or ‘elements’ commonly cited as being central to the effective communication of science from across the fields of science, communication, education, and science communication. A list of ‘key elements’ or ‘core skills’ was hence produced and systematically critiqued, edited, and validated by experts in the above four fields using a version of the Delphi method. Each of the skills identified was considered by experts to be mostly, highly, or absolutely essential, and the resource as a whole was validated as ‘Extremely applicable’, within the context of teaching undergraduate science students to communicate with non-scientific audiences. The result of this study is an evidence-based teaching resource: ‘12 Core skills for effective science communication’, which is reflective of current theory and practice. This resource may be used in teaching or as a guide to the development of communication skills for undergraduate science students in Australia and elsewhere.

A dialogue between partnership and feminism: deconstructing power and exclusion in higher education

ABSTRACT Students as partners (SaP) has seen an increase in focus as an area of active student engagement in higher education. Many complexities and challenges have been shared in this evolving field regarding inclusivity and power. We discuss, in this dialogue, insights that can be uncovered by exploring SaP through a feminist lens – illuminating the fact that both fields seem to be seated in similar radical processes of challenging, questioning, destabilising, deconstructing, and empowering. We unravel issues of power and exclusion by exploring: what feminist theories might add to SaP; embedded binaries and what they reveal about power relations within the language of SaP; and ways of writing about SaP that are inclusive. We aim to step away from dominant understandings, incite acts of self-reflection, and open possibilities for future research and practice by questioning the boundaries and binaries that currently shape the institutions of higher education.

What makes stakeholder engagement in social licence “meaningful”? Practitioners’ conceptualisations of dialogue

ABSTRACT Social licence to operate (SLO) acknowledges the need for extractive industries to move beyond regulatory requirements into social accountability, which requires engagement between companies and their stakeholders. Engagement efforts point to dialogue as being integral for increasing the inclusivity of, for example, land-use decision-making in rural governance. Since little research explores what constitutes “constructive dialogue”, this research empirically explored how dialogue is conceptualised by expert engagement practitioners in SLO. Practitioners conceptualised constructive dialogue as both a threshold for, and an indicator of, social licence. This finding aligns with academic theorisation of dialogue wherein dialogue represents a collaborative form of engagement core to the development of SLO. Practitioners suggested dialogue is most commonly, and potentially problematically, operationalised as a goal-oriented process, aligning with previous work suggesting a “spectrum of dialogue” from strategic to learning-oriented. Contextual realities, such as time and costs, define where implemented dialogue practice ultimately falls. Analysis of practitioners’ views suggests industry and academia may consider future engagement practice and research in light of the centrality of reciprocal dialogic processes for increasing the inclusivity of SLO processes.

Toward theories of partnership praxis: an analysis of interpretive framing in literature on students as partners in teaching and learning

ABSTRACT A body of literature on students as partners (SaP) in higher education has emerged over the last decade that documents, shares, and evaluates SaP approaches. As is typical in emerging fields of inquiry, scholars differ regarding how they see the relationship between the developments in SaP practices and the theoretical explanations that guide, illuminate, and situate such practices. In this article we explore the relationship between theory and practice in SaP work through an analysis of interpretive framing employed in scholarship of SaP in teaching and learning in higher education. Through a conceptual review of selected publications, we describe three ways of framing partnership that represent distinct but related analytical approaches: building on concepts; drawing on constructs; and imagining through metaphors. We both affirm the expansive and creative theorising in scholarship of SaP in university teaching and learning and encourage further deliberate use and thoughtful development of interpretive framings that take seriously the disruptive ethos and messy human relational processes of partnership. We argue that these developmental processes move us toward formulating theories of partnership praxis.