STARS Conference 2015 In July this year the inaugural STARS conference was held in Melbourne at the Crown Conference Centre. STARS is the acronym for “Students, Transitions, Achievement, Retention & Success”. As stated on their website this conference “provides the opportunity to disseminate and discuss current research, good practice, emerging initiatives and leading edge ideas that are aimed at enhancing students’ tertiary experience”. Formally known as the “International First Year in Higher Education” the conference format has expanded to meet delegate demand and interest to explore students’ tertiary experiences across the broad spectrum of their studies, although the importance of the first year experience has not been lost. The conference is a great opportunity to hear about current education focused research activities, share ideas, be inspired by new ideas and good practice, and to network with delegates from national and international universities. Flinders University was well represented at the conference across special interest group workshop facilitation, panel discussions and presentations.
Liz Abery from the School of Health Sciences has attended and presented at the conference in its former format for the past three years and finds it to be very beneficial and inspiring, always returning invigorated and with new ideas to implement into topic management. This year, along with colleagues from the Social Health Sciences Unit, Liz was instrumental in two presentations at the conference. The first was with co-author Dr Jessie Gunson in a paper entitled “Emotion, emotional labour and extension requests in Higher Education”. The impetus for this came from personal experiences but looked at this issue from the student perspective as well as from the perspective of Topic Coordinators challenged by this experience. The presentation was very well received and delegates from interstate universities interested in this concept have since contacted them keen to follow any further research in this area. The change in focus of this year’s conference provided Liz with the opportunity to present findings from her research on Work Integrated Learning (WIL).
Liz Abery presents at the STARS conference
September 2015
Liz co-ordinates the Health Work Internship topic within the Bachelor of Health Sciences. After receiving a Vice Chancellor’s Teaching and Learning Innovation Grant in 2013 Liz wanted to find out from the students own lived-experience what made a WIL placement successful and how to best support students structurally, academically and emotionally through that journey. So as part of the grant she conducted a research study with Health Work Internship students. The outcomes of that study have resulted in many changes to the topic structure and management. Along with Associate Professor Claire Drummond and Nadia Bevan, Liz’s abstract entitled “Work Integrated Learning: what do the students want? A qualitative study of Health Sciences student experiences of a noncompetency based placement” was accepted for STARS. Liz has also presented variations of the study outcomes at the ACEN and NZACE conferences. As WIL was a new theme for the STARS conference the presentation elicited some positive interest. A very positive outcome was that the paper was selected from over forty to be published in the next edition of the Student Success Journal. Liz.abery@flinders.edu.au