TEACHER/SUPERVISOR: Marleen Groenier & Karlijn Geelkerken
TOPIC
For Technical Medicine (TM), professional identity development is an important educational pillar, partly because Technical Medicine is an emerging profession. Communication education therefore forms a recurring component throughout the TM curriculum.
Within communication education, collaborative learning plays a central role during feedback dialogues following medical consultations with a simulated patient (SP). One student conducts the consultation while three fellow students observe. After the consultation, the students engage in a group dialogue in which feedback is provided and discussed.
In this context, collaborative learning refers to an educational approach in which students work together in small groups to achieve a common learning goal. The focus is therefore on learning through collaboration, rather than learning how to collaborate effectively.
Previous research among first-year TM students has shown that students particularly benefit from situations in which a dialogue takes place, rather than from one-way communication alone (Lovink et al., 2026).
RESEARCH CONTEXT
Teachers have observed differences between first- and third-year TM students. They have the impression that collaborative learning occurs to a greater extent among third-year students, with students engaging more actively in dialogue, as described by Lovink et al. (2026). However, this observation has not yet been systematically investigated or quantitatively substantiated.
This raises several interesting questions: How does collaborative learning develop throughout the programme? What exactly characterizes more effective use of collaborative learning? Does this development concern the process of interaction, such as turn-taking, the content of the discussion, such as the depth of argumentation, or both?
As Teasley (1997) pointed out, collaboration does not automatically lead to effective learning; its effectiveness depends largely on how people talk and reason with one another. When students do not merely agree with or repeat what their peers say, but instead build upon their peers' contributions by elaborating on ideas or providing constructive criticism, this is referred to as transactivity. Research suggests that students who are trained to engage in transactive dialogue achieve better learning outcomes than untrained students (Gätje & Jurkowski, 2021). Similarly, Mette and Hanze (2021) found that transactive communication can improve knowledge exchange and learning outcomes.
This project provides an opportunity to critically examine these assumptions within Technical Medicine education.
INTERNSHIP ASSIGNMENT
The internship project will focus on exploring and operationalizing the development of collaborative learning among TM students. The student will work with existing video recordings of feedback dialogues from the bachelor programme.
A central question for the internship is:
What observable characteristics can be used to describe and analyse differences in collaborative learning between first- and third-year TM students during feedback dialogues?
The student will explore potential differences at both the individual and group level.
Possible areas of investigation
1. Individual student characteristics
- How do students regulate turn-taking?
- Is feedback more specific and better substantiated?
- Is there greater argumentative depth or transactivity in students' contributions?
- Do students ask different types of questions?
- To what extent do students engage in self-regulation without external guidance?
2. Group- or cohort-level characteristics
- Is speaking time more equally distributed among third-year students?
- Is there more shared regulation, for example in structuring the discussion?
- Do third-year students ask different types of questions than first-year students?
- Is the simulated patient involved differently in the discussion by third-year students?
- Does the simulated patient respond differently to more advanced students?
- Is there more self-regulation without external guidance among third-year students?
Activities during the internship
The internship can focus on:
- reviewing relevant literature on collaborative learning, transactivity and dialogue;
- exploring existing video recordings of feedback dialogues;
- identifying and defining relevant observable characteristics of collaborative learning;
- developing or adapting a coding framework for analysing the dialogues;
- testing and refining the coding framework on a subset of the available recordings;
- exploring potential differences between first- and third-year students;
- determining which aspects are suitable for systematic investigation in a subsequent thesis;
- developing a research proposal and/or methodological framework for the follow-up thesis study.
THESIS ASSIGNMENT
The internship can serve as the foundation for a subsequent thesis project. The thesis could use the framework and initial findings developed during the internship to systematically investigate differences in collaborative learning between first- and third-year TM students.
The thesis could, for example, examine:
Which differences exist in collaborative learning between first- and third-year Technical Medicine students during feedback dialogues in communication education?
Depending on the findings and the feasibility of the research design, the thesis could use a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approach.
The thesis could further investigate whether differences between cohorts are primarily related to interactional processes (e.g., turn-taking, participation and shared regulation), the content and quality of dialogue (e.g., argumentation and transactivity), or a combination of both.
If feasible, a further extension could be to investigate how these developments continue into the master's programme and whether changes in collaborative learning are related to the development of students' professional identity.
REQUIREMENT
Because the project uses video recordings from the Dutch-language bachelor programme, a good command of Dutch is required.