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Understanding the attainment gap in diagnostic radiography; an exploration of student experience of learning, engagement and support
Name of lead presenter: Dr Aarthi Ramlaul
Email address: a.ramlaul@herts.ac.uk
Names of additional presenters: Dr Olan Lawal & Louise Hadley
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: Diagnostic Radiography and Imaging
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Abstract
Introduction and background: The student experience is highly valued in universities today, and a number of tutor-led initiatives such as creating engaging lessons contribute to having a good university experience. However, students are expected to actively engage with learning tasks, and this is seen to be a challenge on the diagnostic radiography programme. The challenges of student engagement are often coupled with student satisfaction and/or achievement (Payne, 2019).
The diagnostic radiography programme currently has a high attainment gap between white students and students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups. The attainment gap based on the 2019-20 student performance is 40.9%. The numerical appreciation of this gap is well established, however, the reasons for this gap remains an under-researched area and a much-needed avenue to explore if we are to take meaningful steps to reduce this gap. In this study, the impact of intersectionality, for example, gender, socio-economic background and disability will be considered. These can add to the complexity of an individual’s experience of racism and discrimination (Amos, 2019).

Methods: The study uses a qualitative research design with a phenomenological methodological approach. There are three parts to this study. Part 1 of the study involves the conduct of a questionnaire which was conducted to the programme cohort (n=377). The 2nd and 3rd parts of the study comprise focus group and interview phases, respectively. This presentation will focus on findings from Part 1 of this study.

Findings: As this is a work in progress, the findings were not available at the time of submission of this abstract.

Implications for transforming learning and teaching in health and social work: Understanding the challenges faced by students is powerful in enabling tutors to tailor the provision of learning to means that most enhance the learner experience.

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To explore the lived experiences of black adult third-year nursing students in HE
Name of lead presenter: Maleka Harcharran
Email address: m.harcharran@herts.ac.uk
Department: Nursing, Health and Wellbeing
Programme: MSc Education
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Abstract
Background: Recent reports have highlighted success in recruiting an ethnically diverse student population into universities within the United Kingdom (UK). The government and universities have developed a commitment to improving social mobility, widening access initiatives to higher education, and raising aspirations and attainment among ethnic groups. Nevertheless, there are reports of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students who are less likely to graduate with a First or Upper Second-Class degree in comparison to their White counterparts, equating to a gap of 13% nationally. The attainment gap is more pronounced in qualifiers from a Black ethnic origin than any other ethnic group. BAME students’ experiences being treated differently based on at ‘best’ unconscious bias and at its worse institutional racism.

Methodology: The research done is a qualitative, narrative inquiry study that sought to explore the lived experiences of Black adult third- year nursing students in HE with a view to understanding how this may affect attainment and their psychological well-being. The information collected was done via individual and focus group interviews utilising a semi-structured approach.

Findings: The participants in this study described the challenges they encountered when navigating campus life. These include issues with finances, travelling time to and from university and placement areas, lack of support, feeling isolated, and experiences of overt and covert forms of microaggression. The findings from this study is similar to NUS (2019), Smith’s (2017, 2018) and Hammond et al (2019) research into the experiences of BAME students in HE.

Conclusion: The recommendations made by students to help bridge this gap includes: more BAME staff and student representatives, more support from academic and clinical staff, and greater lecturer control of the classroom environment to ensure that it is inclusive.

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An anti-racist initiative in Social Work – The Black Student Empowerment Group (BSEG)
Name of lead presenter: Shantel Thomas
Email address: s.thomas23@herts.ac.uk
Name of additional presenter: Vida Douglas
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: Social Work
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Abstract
Despite a strong rhetoric of anti-racist practice in social work over the last 30 years (Williams & Bernard, 2018), a wide range of research evidence continues to highlight inequalities in outcomes for children, young people and adult social care service users. In 2020, the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd, and the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on the lives of marginalised ethnic communities, heightened the need to refocus attention on anti-racism and activism in social work education and practice (Reid, 2020). The BSEG initiative was born following qualitative feedback from our most recent National Student Survey. Some Black students described a state of ‘voicelessness’ and feeling ‘undervalued’ and commented on the importance of providing a culturally rich and supportive learning environment. A point to note here is BAME is a contested term (Singh, 2021) which is used to refer to people from minoritised ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. It includes people from both non-white origins (e.g. African, Caribbean and Asians and white origins (e.g. Irish, Eastern European) (Masocha, 2015). The term Black is used throughout this paper to include people with an African and/or Caribbean heritage.

In relation to outcomes, the dominant discourse indicates that there is a significant awarding gap between Black students and their white counterparts (Office of National Statistics (ONS), 2019). The OFS 2020 reports that 86.6% of white students obtained the ‘good’ degrees (first class or upper second) in comparison to 68.2% of Black students. However, this gap has been closing and reduced by almost 4 percentage points between 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Black social work students’ experiences are also negatively impacted by racism, according (Masocha, 2015). They are more likely to fail their practice placement (Bartoli et al, 2008), less likely to complete their course on time and more likely to fail or have to retake assignments compared to their white counterparts (Hussein et al., 2009). The focus of BSEG is on Black students due to the statistical significance in the disparities in educational attainment when compared to their white peers.

The purpose of BSEG is to provide a structure and forum through which members can exchange ideas, offer support to each other, and develop programs in the interest of the Black social work student body and the Black community (Tedam, 2015). A safe space was created to discuss issues around race and the group acts as a channel of communication where such issues can be raised, addressed and/or referred to appropriate dept/person for action. This is in line with UH’s Strategic and Access and Participation plans.

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Gaining an empathetic insight into parenting: Evaluating the use of RealCare dolls

Name of lead presenter: Professor Brian Littlechild
Email address: b.littlechild@herts.ac.uk
Names of additional presenters: Dr. Lisa Whiting; Dr. Julia Petty; Sheila Roberts; Dr. Karen Mills
Department: Nursing, Health and Wellbeing/Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: Bsc Children’s Nursing and Bsc Social Work
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Abstract
Background: RealCare dolls, infant simulators are designed to enable professionals to teach health related matters. RealCare dolls have previously been widely used within dementia care (Mitchell, 2014; Mitchell & Templeton, 2014) and with young people (e.g. Herrman et al., 2011); the work with the latter group has provided limited empirical evidence to support their use (Brinkman et al 2010., 2016) or educational benefit. This highlights a need for research to explore the usage of the dolls with health/Social Work[SW] professionals. Empathy is concerned with gaining a deeper understanding of someone’s perspective (McDonagh, 2015) and is a key quality in terms of practice; despite this, it can be challenging for students to gain insight into the experiences of others. The use of RealCare dolls offers an opportunity for students to develop an empathetic insight into parental experiences. Funding for the research has been granted by a local CCG. The research team undertook pre-pilot work last year (Phase 1) to gain their own empathetic understanding of the use of the dolls. The work has been accepted for publication (Whiting et al., 2021).

Methods: The aim is to evaluate the use of RealCare dolls in terms of developing an empathetic insight into parenting amongst BSc Hons Nursing (Children’s) students.
A goal-free formative evaluative approach (Moule & Goodman, 2014) is being used to underpin the study. Data collection will be undertaken between June-August 2021. September 2020 BSc Hons Nursing (Children’s) will be provided with a RealCare doll to care for; they will then be invited to participate in a focus group or interview to ascertain their perception of the doll and its ability for them to develop an empathetic insight into parenting.

Application: Data collection, analysis and findings are still to be undertaken and completed. However, the presentation will draw on key findings of our aforementioned pre-pilot work. Ultimately, the findings will inform the future teaching and learning of students in relation to the development of empathy, a core skill for health/SW professionals; phase 3 (Autumn 2022) will involve SW students.

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Theoretical assessment design: Best practices in pre-registration nursing education.
Name of lead presenter: Gabieba Donough
Email address: gdonough@uwc.ac.za
Names of additional presenters: Prof. Felicity Daniels (UWC); Dr Katlego Mthimunye (UH- HSK)
Department: School of Nursing (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)
Programme: Pre-registration nursing.
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Abstract
Since the nineteenth century, assessment has been used in higher education. Assessment traditions, on the other hand, had to be adapted through change and innovation in a continually evolving higher education system. In an effort to address transformation in nursing education, nurse educators are tasked to ensure that current assessment practices remain relevant without compromising the quality. This study aimed to establish best practices for theoretical assessment design in pre-registration nursing education. Following a robust literature search process following the five steps of Arksey and O'Malley's framework, a consensus to shortlist twelve studies was reached. Three independent reviewers were involved in this process to ensure rigor. The findings revealed that various factors have a significant impact on theoretical assessment design in pre-registration nursing education. These factors include:

1. the use of taxonomy framework to align assessments,
2. bridging the theory-practice gap,
3. nurse educators’ workload.

These findings suggest that the quality and relevance of theoretical assessments design in pre-registration nursing education could benefit immensely when nurse educators place emphasis on constructive alignment with reference to the scaffolding of the assessment or for learning based on taxonomy frameworks and clinical practice. Nurse educators should endeavour to effectively apply and appropriately align theoretical assessments with the principles of taxonomy frameworks such as that of Benjamin Bloom. When the framework is implemented correctly, nurse educators will be able to design assessments that are well-balanced, assessing appropriate cognitive skills without creating the impression of a tough or easy assessment. To reduce the theory-practice gap, emphasis should be placed on types of questions used when designing assessments considering that assessment practices must be aligned with the learning and teaching strategies. The workload is a management issue that calls for norms and standards for workload distribution considering the time needed for the design of meaningful assessments.

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LGBTQ+ inclusion and visibility within the undergraduate physiotherapy programme
Name of lead presenter: Matthew Guilliatt
Email address: m.guilliatt2@herts.ac.uk
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: Physiotherapy
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Abstract
The inclusive curriculum framework has been a key focus recently addressing the awarding gap for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students (McDuff et al., 2020) however, the effects on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer + (LGBTQ+) community has not been as widely investigated (Page, 2016). The key aims were to establish if there was representation of the LGBTQ+ community within the undergraduate physiotherapy programme and whether students feel representation within the teaching material was important. This was undertaken using a self-reported anonymous questionnaire of current physiotherapy students (n=209) at the University of Hertfordshire from the 15th – 29th March 2021, and contextualised by secondary research. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Hertfordshire Health, Science, Engineering and Technology Ethics Committee with Delegated Authority (Protocol Number aHSK/SF/UH/04488(1)). An 8% response rate was achieved (n=17), 4/17 students identified as LGBTQ+. 11/17 students reported within their physiotherapy teaching matierial there had been inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. 9/17 students reported if they were / are LGBTQ+, they did not feel they saw themselves represented within the teaching material (3/9 identied as LGBTQ+). 10/17 students reported they felt it was important to be represented within the teaching material. Inclusive curriculum applies to all students irrespective of religion, gender, race, disability and socioeconomic backgrounds (McDuff et al., 2020). Recommendations of using inclusive language, demonstrating role models, enhancing social engagement through the curriculum content and inclusive professional practice examples are stratagies to increase representation of LGBTQ+ students within the programme (University of Birmingham, 2017).

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A new vision for the Occupational therapy workforce; co-production and validation of a degree apprenticeship
Name of lead presenter: Claire Lancaster
Email address: c.lancaster2@herts.ac.uk
Names of additional presenters: Georgia Twigg (g.twigg@herts.ac.uk) & Sarah Lewis (s.lewis7@herts.ac.uk)
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: Occupational Therapy Degree Apprenticeship
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Abstract
Introduction: This new model of degree apprenticeship Occupational Therapy (OT) education has now been accredited for delivery at 7 UK universities by the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT, 2019). Hertfordshire is unique in beginning its OT provision with a degree apprenticeship to meet local needs. The course was co-designed with a lifespan focused curriculum meeting both the professional body requirements (Royal College of Occupational Therapists, 2019, 2021) and learning needs of local undergraduate apprentices, who study alongside full-time work.

Rationale: Degree apprenticeships (DA) in OT enable therapy support staff to earn a salary while they learn, and for local employers to contribute and collaborate in the skill development of their workforce.

Method: This OTDA was co-designed and co-produced with employers and other stakeholders including service-users. Despite potential challenges of amending and validating this programme and then launching during a pandemic, the interest and support received has been remarkable and positive.

Results: The original separate physical and mental health focused modules were amended to a lifespan based curriculum following recommendations from the RCOT at validation. The first cohort of apprentices have commenced a lifespan focused curriculum using an enquiry-based learning pedagogy (Whitcombe, 2013). To date feedback from both apprentices and employers about this approach has been very positive despite the challenges of online delivery.

Conclusion: This co-produced programme has successfully developed and launched during a pandemic through use of virtual platforms delivered by a new teaching team. Both the development of the course and teaching demonstrate innovative and responsive approaches for growing the future OT workforce.

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Simulation Fortnight; a pragmatic solution to cancelled clinical placement as a result of the coronavirus pandemic
Name of lead presenter: Dr. Vince Clarke
Email address: v.m.1.clarke@herts.ac.uk
Name of additional presenter: Alex Ulrich
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: BSc Hons Paramedic Science
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Abstract
Coronavirus presented unique difficulties in terms of clinical placement for paramedic science students, who as part of their undergraduate programme, ordinarily spend a fortnight in operating theatres for exposure to advanced airway management skills. As a result of this cancelled clinical placement, the paramedic science team drew upon their experiences from teaching within ambulance and helicopter emergency medical services to formulate a fortnight of clinical simulations. Final year paramedic science students were divided into small ‘bubbles’ and rotated around eight clinical scenarios a day. These scenarios were designed to resemble ‘a day in the life’ of a Paramedic in urban and rural ambulance services and were facilitated by experienced advanced paramedic practitioners, core university lecturing staff, flight paramedics and prehospital care doctors. The simulated clinical cases increased in difficulty, fidelity and intensity throughout the fortnight and took place in and around the College Lane Campus in February 2021. Classroom and lab spaces were utilised as often as outdoor spaces regardless of the inclement weather, which added to the fidelity of the simulations and prepared students for the reality of working in challenging environments.

There were 54 students in total and the approximate cost of simulation fortnight was approximately £10,000 with £6750 of that coming from money allocated to cancelled placements. The majority of the cost was associated with the cost of visiting lecturing staff and equipment (so not to impact on concurrent module activity from other year groups). In terms of future planning, students in each year group will receive simulation weeks integrated within their programme whilst other year groups will be allocated time in their programme to assist. This will encourage peer learning and reduce cost.

The benefits of this approach were multifactorial, and improvements were seen the following areas: increasing student confidence, ability to manage stress and operate under pressure, ability to implement theory into practice and ability to problem solve in ‘grey areas’ often not addressed by traditional theoretical teachings. Feedback from the students was exemplary and initial performance among the year group in end of year OSCEs is encouraging. As such, this approach will now be integrated into academic timelines for future year groups, across the programme.

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Delivering a new module in a pandemic
Name of lead presenter: Dr John Ramage
Email address: j.ramage@herts.ac.uk
Department: Allied Health, Midwifery and Social Work
Programme: MSc Advance Paramedic Practice
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Abstract
In 2021 the paramedic department redesigned the Masters degree in paramedic science. It has become the MSc in advanced paramedic practice, two new streams were developed reflecting contemporary advanced paramedic practice and are in line with the career framework from the college of paramedics (College of Paramedics, 2018). The programs developed are the primary and urgent care stream critical care and emergency care stream. To support the programs new modules were developed, one of the modules developed is airway and ventilation. This aims to enhance the airway management and ventilation skills of paramedics both with respect to their underpinning knowledge, technical skills and aimed to introduce the non-technical skills expected of an advance practitioner such as clinical decision making and human factors. Although the module had been planned to be introduced irrespective of the covid 19 pandemic, the pandemic forced the module team to use a range of blended learning options to deliver the module. Careful consideration had to go into deciding which elements should be delivered in a face-to-face environment to mitigate against the risk of covid transmission.

A great deal was learnt about delivering flexible blended learning. We learnt about how to structure teaching sessions to try to engage students as much as possible using an online platform, many of the lessons we have learnt appear to be similar to thos from other professional groups (Dost et al 2020). Additionally, we have developed opinions on the most beneficial conference softwhere to use for educational purposes and some of the current challenges with the avalible technology. Much of what we have learnt will prove useful outside of a pandemic and the option to deliver some elements of future modules in a blended fashion may prove apealing in the future, particularly to busy postgraduate students from a wide catchment area.

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A proposed HSK Multimedia Assessment Framework for effective use of multimedia assignments in a higher education setting
Name of lead presenter: Richard Matovu
Email address: r.matovu2@herts.ac.uk
Name of additional presenter: Dr Anthony Herbland
Department: HSK Educational Technology Team
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Abstract
Multimedia is described as the combination of more than one type of media to create a finished product. The types of media could include images, illustrations, text, video, audio and animations (Mayer 2009). An example of a multimedia assignment would be a narrated presentation video, made up of written text, images, illustrations and the student’s voice narration. According to the recent literature, multimedia assignments can provide opportunity for students to develop visual presentation skills (Riordan et al., 2020), to deepen their active learning (Coulson & Frawley, 2017; Pirhonen & Rasi ,2016), and to demonstrate their assessed skills using new and engaging methods of working (Ledonne, 2014).

Many modules across the School have increased their use of multimedia assignments as a medium for students to present their summative assignments rather than using the more conventional written essay assignments. Recent examples include the use of narrated PowerPoint presentations, recorded practical skills videos, audio podcasts, narrated digital posters, digital stories using Powtoon animations. Unfortunately, the use of multimedia assignments in the School, has also caused a lot of unforeseen problems and frustrations for both the students and the teaching staff. This negative experience is reflected in the views of Arvidsson and Delfanti (2019), Earnshaw (2017) and Martin and Zahrndt (2017) who highlighted that multimedia assessments involve specific knowledge or skills, which are only attainable with initial formal training.

Hence, the HSK Educational Technology team provided support which offered students scaffolding support when working on multimedia assignments (Reyna & Meier, 2018). At the conference, we will present the HSK multimedia assessment framework as a guide to successfully use multimedia assessments and how the HSK Educational Technology team can enable and support the academics in transforming their assessment approach towards multimedia assignments.

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Student, service user and carers’ perspectives of involvement in a co-produced module

Name of lead presenter: Jan Leeks
Email address: J.leeks@herts.ac.uk
Names of additional presenters: Lou Cobb, Tony Storton, Jessica Tonwe, Flic Horner, Katie Varley
Department: Nursing, Health and Wellbeing
Programme: Mental Health
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Abstract
The meaningful involvement of patients, service users and carers in healthcare education has been widely recognised. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC, 2018), and the Health Education England mandate (2020) emphasise increasing focus on public involvement in education to best support learning. With the advent of a new curriculum for degree nurses in 2019 the University of Hertfordshire (UH) mental health nursing team comitted to co-production in both curriculm design and module delivery. Concerned that superficial participation serves to reinforce traditional power relationships (Katsikitis et al., 2017), the module lead for MSc Leading and Managing in Mental Health Nursing decided to ensure that service user and carer involvement was embedded authentically within the module. The module lead liaised with Viewpoint, a service user organisation, and the University Patient and Public Involvment team, to identify people who would be interested in bringing their expertise to the module and work as part of the module team.

Online delivery of this module enabled co-production of an innovative assessment through the facilitation of supervision groups lead by service users, carers, clinicians and academics. The summative assessment comprised of supervision notes taken from supervision groups where leadership experiences were presented by students and discussed in groups facilitated by the module team.

For this presentation Jessica, Flic, and Katie, three MSc student nurses, will reflect on their experience of participating in online supervision groups facilitated by Tony, a service user and Lou, a carer. Tony and Lou will draw a comparison between superficial participation, and their inclusion in the planning and delivery of this module. Jan, the module lead will reflect on feedback from the students and module team and identify strategies for improvement.

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Co-production and leadership; oil and water?
Name of lead presenter: Dr Audrey Campbell
Email address: a.campbell20@herts.ac.uk
Name of additional presenter: Mark Sanderson
Department: Nursing, Health and Wellbeing
Programme: MSc Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion
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Abstract
Mental health recovery has been called a transformation ideology for mental health care. It is a change to a more inclusive approach which values people’s autonomy. Co-production originated in the US in the 1970s as part of the survivor, civil rights and social activist movement and has emerged as a potential way to effect change in how mental health services are delivered to this discriminated against group. Recognition that, through authentic involvement, equality, and reciprocity, for people who have lived experience of mental distress and their carers, can transform services. Additionally, co-production can empower and enable health and social care staff to make decisions with rather than for people they work with, which in turn has been shown to bring greater job satisfaction.

Following co-producing our programme for re-validation we embedded formative co-production exercises in three out of five modules. This enables students to engage and develop skills in the practice that we consider fundamental to contemporary health service delivery, authentic collaboration and participatory practice. This opens up conversations on a very different footing from usual as within our diverse student group 50% have lived experience of mental health care and 50% have professional qualifications.

Across the programme students choose topics and produce presentations in small groups where we stress that it is the process that is important. By the third co-produced exercise we suggest they might even abandon the suggested structure, go rogue and get creative. The final short, reflective assignment about co-production and leadership has proven to elicit some serious (re)consideration of career paths, what involvement means and how and what type of leadership in health services, if any, fits with authentic co-production and shared decision making. We believe this is transformative education through experiential group work that helps move knowledge and understanding into practice change.

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Embracing new approaches to assessment; the use of digital stories as an assessment tool
Name of lead presenter: Laura Lowe
Email address: l.lowe@herts.ac.uk
Department: Nursing, Health and Wellbeing
Programme: Nursing (Mental Health)
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Abstract
When thinking about being innovative, flexible and promoting success, we must consider that traditional assessment methods might not be the medium through which all students can really showcase their knowledge. We introduced a digital story as an assessment for a first-year mental-health communication module which included 75 students, to assess students in a different way. The remit was a 5-6-minute digital story about their communication journey with a service user on placement, highlighting the theories and skills they used, and reflecting on this process. Many students were initially hesitant about this new approach, so support was given to ease this process. There was purposefully a choice of mediums (e.g. PowerPoint, Powtoon, MovieMaker), to allow students to select the programme that suited them.

Through digital stories, students could demonstrate their empathetic communication and emotional intelligence skills more freely than in a traditional essay, as they were able to speak, or include snippets of conversation on screen and also include video/ music/ images to capture the feelings of their service user and themselves, in, arguably, a more powerful way than a written paragraph.

Not all students perform as effectively in exams or essays, so giving alternative assessment methods enables students to achieve in different ways. In addition, the future of heatlhcare is increasingly digital so having these skills will be useful. Gaining confidence in making digital stories can enable our future nurses to make ward/ service videos, information media, health promotion media, life stories, etc.. with these skills instead of traditional leaflets.

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