Part of my teaching responsibilities are to supervise a group of final year physiotherapy students as they conduct a research project during the year. I'll be guiding their project so that it feeds into my own research.
Title: Factors affecting the use of a social network to change teaching and learning practice in a South African physiotherapy department
This project will serve to the possible factors affecting the use of a social network to facilitate blended learning in the undergraduate physiotherapy curriculum. The project will be conducted by a 4th year research group under my supervision, who will design a questionnaire that will satisfy the objectives of the project.
The final outcome for the project will be a full article based on the results of the survey. The article submitted by the research group will be regarded as a draft article to be submitted for publication by the end of the year. The researcher / group supervisor will take responsibility for final reviewing and editing of the finished work, which will be submitted in partial fulfillment of my first PhD objective.
To explore the possible factors that may influence students' participation in a social network as part of their studies. This aim was determined following a review of the literature, as well as the researchers personal experience with social networks, and anecdotal evidence from students over time.
This review of the literature should seek to establish relationships between social networks, blended learning and clinical education. While my own systematic review will explore these concepts in more detail, using communities of practice as a theoretical framework, this review need only explore the concepts to explore the potential of social networks as platforms for blended learning in clinical education.