Unit information: Supervised Individual Study (Unit 224) in 2015/16

Unit name	Supervised Individual Study (Unit 224)
Unit code	MEDIM0224
Credit points	10
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Academic Year (weeks 1 - 52)
Unit director	Dr. Greenwood
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals
Faculty	Faculty of Health Sciences

Description including Unit Aims

Participants who have a special area of interest and are effective independent learners can undertake a Supervised Individual Study as a 10 or 15 crerdit unit (normally 15). Participants may take the unit at any point during the Programme, subject to the availability of a supervisor and their suitability for independent learning as assessed by the programme teaching staff. The unit will enable participants to write an article of interest to others involved in health professional education and bringing forth new knowledge or understanding, which might be publishable in an educational or other journal and thereby gain an understanding of the publication process. The article may be a theoretical discourse of an empirical report of a small scale research initiative.

Aims:

To enable the student to create knowledge and gain an understanding of the publication process in the field of health professional education.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Completing this module will enable students to:

1. Write an article of interest to people involved in health professional education that might be publishable in an educational or other journal.
2. Create new knowledge and/or understanding of the educative process in the health professions.
3. Gain an understanding of the publication process.

Teaching Information

Generic Teaching: up to 3 hours of generic teaching input per candidate (students taking this module concurrently would be taught together).

Individually tailored support: each student could expect up to 2 hours per 10 credits submission in face-to-face tutorials and/or email contact and/or draft reading.

Assessment Information

The student will produce a written article at a level acceptable for publication in a refereed journal. The length will depend on the number of credits as follows: 10 credits = 2000 words (excluding citations) 15 credits = 3000 words (excluding citations) These word limits match those for units of equivalent credit in this and other programmes but also coincide with the requirements of most peer refereed journals.

Reading and References

Books and publications relating to successful writing and research. E.g. Bell, J. (1999). Doing Your Research Project: A guide for first time researchers in education and social science. (Edn: 3) Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.

• Huff, A.S. (1998). Writing for Scholarly Publication. London: Sage.

• Murray, R. (2004). Writing for Academic Journals (Study Skills Series). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

• Pololi, L., Knight, S., & Dunn, K. (2004). Facilitating Scholarly Writing in Academic Medicine. Lessons Learned from a Collaborative Peer Mentoring Program. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 19 (1), 64-68.

• Punch, K. (1998). Introduction to social research. London: Sage.