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Chapter 13

Enquiry-Based Learning for Health Professionals

Introduction

Enquiry-based learning (EBL) is a teaching-learning method that focuses on students collaborating to pursue their own lines of enquiry and to share research and opinions in achieving the required learning objectives. This approach uses health-related situations as a context for learning critical thinking and problem-solving skills. and for further development of information literacy skills. EBL is a reversal of the traditional order of learning, where you had to learn the information and then apply it. In EBL, learning centres on an enquiry, or real-world project, which provides the context for group collaboration in research, exchange of information, and presentation and evaluation of ideas in relation to a given enquiry problem. This chapter outlines the characteristics of EBL and the different roles of facilitator and student.

Why learn this way?

Each of the health professions has identified a range of competencies necessary for professional practice. For example:

Health professionals must be able to demonstrate reflective practice: be able to identify their own abilities and level of competence, and to act to enhance their own professional development. This requires practitioners to be up to date in their knowledge and skills. Therefore, they are expected to be self-directed learners and able to self evaluate and resource their own learning (Anonymous).

EBL allows students to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and reflective skills expected of a health professional, including working in an interdisciplinary context. Moreover, central to EBL is team work, an important aspect of health professional practice.

Characteristics of EBL

EBL is a teaching-learning approach which:

• uses real-world situations as a context for learning
• focuses on thinking skills, e.g. critical analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making
• requires an integration of inter-disciplinary knowledge, skills and behaviour
• requires students to take responsibility for their own learning and share their learning in small groups
• allows students to develop life-long learning skills

Adapted from Penny Little, PBL Pty Ltd. (pennylittlePBL@bigpond.com)

The process of EBL

Unlike traditional teaching and learning approaches, in EBL the enquiry is central. Furthermore, the starting point for each enquiry is a real-life case or situation, which then leads to an exploration of the issues involved through research, input from lectures, group discussions, and so on. The diagram below illustrates the cycle of learning activities in an EBL enquiry.

The EBL Enquiry

Reproduced with the permission of Penny Little, PBL Pty Ltd.

The Enquiry

The enquiry is designed to support your learning of critically important knowledge and skills, and to enable you to develop capabilities that are an important aspect of your development as a health professional. You need to carry out individual learning activities and develop your capabilities further by working with other members of your team. Self-directed learning refers to research undertaken by students individually and in groups by locating relevant sources, and gathering key information related to the problem. Structured learning tasks include lectures, and most importantly workshops for group work led by a facilitator. Application of learning to enquiry problem occurs throughout the investigation and informs each stage of the process: each workshop and group meeting and the texts (e.g. oral presentation, a group poster, written report) produced to achieve the learning objectives.

Example of an Enquiry

The aim of the enquiry is to explore the benefits of using a team-based approach for the delivery of health and human services from the perspectives of the consumer, health and human services organisations and their staff. The enquiry problem centres on the need for health agencies and local government to combine efforts to address the increasing number of injuries among young people in the Cooinda Region.

An interdisciplinary project team would be engaged by the Cooinda Regional Community Committee, established to bring together health and human service agencies, local government and community representatives in the Region, to investigate the issue and to present the findings to a meeting of the Committee.

You will begin this enquiry by considering the concept of a team using reflections on your own observations of teams in popular culture. Different models of teamwork, obstacles to effective teamwork and managing issues that arise when working in a team will be examined. In the latter part of this enquiry, you will focus on different types of team that exist in the health and human services sector and how their function impacts on the outcomes for the consumer, their family, the organisation and its staff.

You and your team are required to submit a number of pieces of work for this enquiry. The individual task involves three stages. Firstly, you prepare a short summary of a text allocated to you in the first phase of the enquiry. Then you share your review with those prepared by other team members of their allocated text. Finally, you locate a text, such as a journal article or section or chapter of a text, relevant to your work in this enquiry. You will need to prepare a summary of a specified length synthesising the main points from the various texts you have read for this enquiry.

The team task is to prepare a team poster and an oral presentation. The poster presents the teams’ exploration of interprofessional collaboration. Your oral presentation should support the content of your poster. Both individual and team tasks will be assessed according to specific learning outcomes in relation to team work, academic skills, and communication skills.

Adapted from Enquiry 1, Interprofessional Practice A (HLTIPA), 28 October, 2008.

Facilitator’s role

The role of the facilitator is to:

• support students in making their teams effective learning teams.
• encourage teams to become autonomous.
• promote development of learning skills
• monitor students’ progress.
• question and challenge students in applying their learning to their investigation.
• provide students with feedback on achievement of learning outcomes.
• serve as a resource person and promote the use of a variety of resources.

Facilitators may differ in the way they run their groups. This may be due to the different expectations across units and across years. Moreover, facilitators need to respond to individual team differences.

Student’s role

The role of the student is to:

• think like a health professional: problem-solving, decision-making, critical and creative thinking.
• accept responsibility for own learning and be a self-directed learner.
• take an active role in planning, organising and evaluating own learning.
• be an effective group member: share information with group members by contributing to research, group discussions, making decisions about and evaluating group processes.
• evaluate own and group members’ learning/achievement of learning outcomes.

Adapted from Penny Little, PBL Pty Ltd.

With its emphasis on self-directed learning, EBL offers students greater opportunities than traditional teaching-learning approaches to develop skills required for life-long learning.

The Last Word

La Trobe University
Faculty of Health Sciences
Bundoora Campus
Study Skills Scheme
Study Skills Handbook