Background

Academic Skills are defined as the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community. Australian tertiary students are arriving to study at university with varied levels of preparation related to skills such as critical reading and thinking, writing with purpose and identifying reliable sources of evidence. This is due to a variety of factors but more recently it may be attributed to student undergraduate populations in Australia being increasingly international without critical foundation skills in English; or the impact of COVID lockdowns. Both factors have led to students arriving at university with potential gaps in their preparation.

Students can access academic skill support through centralised university services, however subject embedded Academic Skills are rare in Allied Health

The aim of this project is to evaluate the benefit of embedding Academic Skills into a first-year subject and to compare student self-perceived understanding of Academic Skills before and after their learning.

Methods

Academic Skills were embedded into the teaching of the first year Eye Anatomy and Physiology subject in the Bachelor of Orthoptics (Hons) at La Trobe University. Students were surveyed to about their self-rated ability/understanding of Academic Skills before and after the intervention.

Results

Twenty students responded to the survey and there was a demonstrated improvement in self-rated ability/understanding of Academic Skills on most measures.

Conclusion

This study suggests that embedding academic skills and integrating them into subject learning allows for seamless integration within the learning materials and assessments and improves student outcomes.