Confronted by the disruption of work-integrated learning (WIL) placements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Durban University of Technology experienced multiple academic and mental health challenges. This study highlights the impact the pandemic had on students from the Departments of Homeopathy,…

Pathophysiology describes and explains the physiological dysfunctions that occur in human diseases. Pathophysiology is content heavy, often leading to medical/biomedical science students adopting a surface approach to learning. To encourage more engagement, we developed clinical simulation practical classes using manikin patients. Students…

Higher education assessment policies aim to please all, creating confusion for staff and students. This study reports on staff and student conceptions of assessment and the students' experience of the assessment regime over their Biomedical Science degree. There was a general alignment of staff and students views of assessment for 19 of 27 items…

Creativity is a uniquely human trait and it is the force behind many modern advancements. Due to the rapid changes seen across the economy and society, creativity has become highly valued and is in increasing demand by employers. To prepare students to meet this demand, many education stakeholders (such as Monash University) have incorporated…

An increasing body of knowledge points to the need for the integration of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)-based topics into undergraduate and graduate curricula. The Racial Justice and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) committee designed and implemented a short activity in an introductory undergraduate biomedical engineering…

Examinations present an intensely focused opportunity for student learning yet opportunities for collaboration, communication, and feedbacks are often wasted. Two-stage examinations where students first take examinations individually and then repeat the examination in small groups hold promise to address this issue. Here, we pilot and evaluate a…

Studies in technology-rich learning environments have reported positive outcomes of active learning when compared to the traditional didactic classroom; others have found no benefits or have found interruption to learning due to the distraction of the technology. Evidence is required to support effective technology spaces that promote professional…

In our biomedical educational program, students follow research courses. Traditionally, students receive research questions and predetermined, teacher-prepared lists of laboratory materials to use. Currently, we aim to increase our research courses' inquiry level towards a more open inquiry by omitting these teacher-prepared lists. Additionally,…

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in authentic research and generally increase the participation rate of students in research. Students' participation in research has a positive impact on their science identity and self-efficacy, both of which can predict integration…

Doctoral students experience high rates of mental health distress and dropout; however, the mental health and wellness of engineering doctoral students is understudied. Studies of student persistence, wellness, and success often aggregate fields together, such as by studying all engineering students. Thus, little work has considered the…

Graduate programs in medicine and biomedical sciences have been severely impacted by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic over the last 2 years. Following 2 years since beginning of the pandemic, data on student support, educational and academic performance as well as sentiment on changes to educational programs are starting to emerge. We performed…

Recent advances in teaching, many of which incorporate elements of active learning, seek to provide students with learning experiences indicative of real-world problem solving. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one form of active learning that challenges students to address open-ended problems. In this work, we evaluate the efficacy of PBL in…

Background: Participating in undergraduate research experiences (UREs) supports the development of engineering students' technical and professional skills. However, little is known about the perceptions of research or researchers that students develop through these experiences. Understanding these perceptions will provide insight into how students…

Metacognitive skills can have enormous benefits for students within engineering courses. Unfortunately, these metacognitive skills tend to fall outside the content area of most courses, and consequently, they can often be neglected in instruction. In this context, previous research on concept mapping as a teaching strategy points to meaningful…

Group projects center learning as a collaborative process, but they often produce mixed results in terms of student commitment and final products. The authors outline their experience with a course designed to engage undergraduate biomedical engineering students in a semester-long group experience and share data from their students' analyses of…