Enhancing Peer Learning through Online Placements for Health and Social Care Professions

This article reports on the innovative design and the delivery of an online placement for university students, in response to the suspension of face-to-face placements due to COVID-19 restrictions in April 2020. A high quality, evidence-based and pedagogically sound experience was built, delivered and reviewed. The online placement not only met the professional standards and demonstrated equivalence in achieving placement learning outcomes, compared to traditional face to face placements, but also offered emergent benefits. The online placement showed enhanced peer learning and improved professional reasoning development by the students. In view of the interest and need for alternative placements, online placements were explored further, contextualised and built into a model which came to be known as Peer-Enhanced E-Placement (PEEP). Throughout 2020, and into 2021, the ‘logjam’ of increased student numbers and reduced placements, dramatically increased the interest in alternative placement learning and the PEEP model. A PEEP professional development acquisition experience was developed and piloted, to disseminate, scale and contextualize the approach by health and social care teams. Feedback from the pilot acquisition experiences indicated that the participants were able to design and implement PEEPs in their own contexts with their students. The scaling up and roll out of the PEEP acquisition experiences now extends to over fifteen professions. Conclusions include that the PEEP model offers a viable, acceptable and successful online practice-based learning option for health and social care students, achieving equivalence in placement learning outcomes and enhanced peer learning.

Relationship between grammatical and pragmatic competence in EFL of Spanish learners through a computer adaptive test

The work at hand is part of a wider study by Martín-Marchante (2015), the objective of which was to study the way pragmatics assessment is approached in the Oxford Online Placement Test (OOPT) which is, currently, one of the most profusely administered computer adaptive tests (CAT). This paper aims, now, to find out the degree of difficulty of the pragmatic items in the OOPT and how much importance is given to pragmatic competence in this test. Furthermore, we analyze the relationship between grammatical and pragmatic competence in EFL of a group of Spanish un- dergraduate students, who took this test. To this end, a descriptive analysis and a multiple linear regression analysis was carried out. The results showed that the quality of the pragmatic items in the OOPT could be improved. Also, we have found that the pragmatic items were somehow related to the student’s final score but not so much as other items of the test, such as those related to gram- mar and reading comprehension. Additionally, the results indicated that there was no correlation between the grammatical and the pragmatic competence of this group of students.

From placement to diagnostic testing: Improving feedback to learners and other stakeholders in SELF (Système d’Evaluation en Langues à visée Formative)

Since 2012 an interdisciplinary and culturally heterogeneous team composed of more than 30 people has been engaged in the complex process of conceiving, designing and validating an online placement test with formative orientation called SELF (Système d’Evaluation en Langues à visée Formative), developed and already deployed in six different languages – Italian and English as pilots, followed by French, Mandarin, Japanese and Spanish. Its results are used to form groups and classes of similar ability, or to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in three macro skills (listening, reading, limited writing). In this report, we describe the steps the multilingual team is currently taking to transform SELF into a diagnostic test that will fulfill its original formative purpose and provide students and other stakeholders with more precise information about their performance. This can be done in two ways, by using the data automatically recorded by the online administration platform more thoroughly and by enriching user feedback with clear and informative graphics. This will enhance the validity of our test, and help close the gap between testing and learning.

The Roles of Online Placement Test in English Language Teaching

The influence of technology in the world today and most especially by students have made it paramount for learning institutions to inculcate technology in the English language teaching curriculum. Could it be that there is a dire need to dive away from the traditional way of chalkboard teaching system to a more interactive whiteboard teaching system? It is worth-noting that constant attraction of students to the internet has made it important for learning institutions to keep abreast with the changes with no exception to context of the study. Thus, on the one hand through literature, this study will review the innovative strategies behind the use of online placement test to determine the course level of students enrolled in English language courses. On the other hand, the study will compare the final examination performance of students to determine the effectiveness of the online placement test. This study intends to address the following research questions: (a) what criteria are used to determine the course level of students before commencing any English language course? (b) Do students prefer the use of online placement test for English course leveling? And (c) how does the English online placement test affect students’ overall performances in the course? The study will adopt a triangulation approach which will comprise the use of surveys, in terms of questionnaires and the use of semi-structured interviews. Thus, the study on the roles of online placement test in English language teaching will shed new light on the importance of technology to enhance learning performances especially amongst students who live in a globalised and digitalised age in the Kingdom of Bahrain.