Students’ perspectives on a podcast-based assignment exercise, while learning to communicate about infections and vaccines
Charmaine Lloyd A * , Pragalathan Apputhurai A and Ali Al-Rubaie AA School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Vic. 3122, Australia.
Charmaine Lloyd has been a microbiology educator at the polytechnic and university level and has been teaching microbiology to students in biomedical science, health science, life science and veterinary bioscience. She is passionate about developing innovative and creative learning & teaching approaches. She has published and presented papers on blogging, scenario-based learning, podcasts and work integrated learning. In the laboratory space, she is interested how microbiota contribute to the wellbeing of the host, group A streptococci, opportunistic infections and microalgae. |
Pragalathan Apputhurai has been a statistics and mathematics lecturer for over 10 years at university level. He has an extensive track record of teaching in applied statistics in health sciences, business, and engineering at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is passionate about implementing newer approaches for more engagement and better student experience in learning. |
Ali Al-Rubaie is a health science educator and researcher in the field of neuroscience, traumatic brain injuries, brain imaging and pathological inflammation. He has experience teaching units in pathology, neuroanatomy and neuroscience among other medical sciences, and also works on designing new collaborative learning technologies for students. |
Microbiology Australia 44(3) 156-161 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA23038
Submitted: 28 March 2023 Accepted: 25 June 2023 Published: 26 July 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Podcasts are used in educational institutions to complement learning and revision. In this paper, the incorporation of a student-created podcast component into a group assignment on vaccines was evaluated. It was hypothesised that group podcast preparation would enable health-science undergraduate students to improve their health communication and digital literacy skills. Students (n = 66) were introduced to the assignment early in semester 2 of 2022, after which they attended regular coursework and training on podcasting software. Students had the opportunity to research, plan, script, curate and record their podcasts, actively engaging in a social constructivist learning approach. The audio conversation was recorded in a mock roleplay setting between health experts and laypersons, both played by students. The content comprised scientific aspects, conflicting opinions and contemporary issues on the vaccine topic, in the context of a lay-audience scenario provided in the assignment. The packaged podcast was graded for soundness of content, roleplaying, ability to engage the listener and creativity. Student perspectives and feedback were collected before and after the assignment through short online surveys comprising open-ended and Likert questions. Pairwise analysis showed improved digital literacy, improved confidence in students’ own communication skills and preference for podcast assignments (P < 0.05). Positive comments included the experience of learning about vaccines, use of podcasting software and fun. Though the podcast approach took a longer time to implement, it was an effective means of facilitating group discussion on the topic and offered students a safe space to experiment communication of health and infection topics through podcast technology.
Keywords: immunology, microbiology, podcast, podcast-assignment, student-driven podcast, vaccine.
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