What you will study
Your work for this module will be more self-directed than in your earlier modules, but you will continue to have access to a study group and a tutor to help shape your enquiries over the coming year. You will work with your tutor to plan your enquiries and need to update them regularly on your current activity.
Scholarship involves a demonstration of your ability to enquire, design, analyse, debate, argue and recommend in ways that demonstrate rigorous thought and a good command of issues and information. You will need to demonstrate what you already know and do, and advance a vision for further improvements that benefit the beneficiaries of your healthcare improvement activities (e.g. patients/clients of your service). To help you achieve this, you are led through five study blocks of work during the one-year module:
- Enquiry, conception and design
- Review of relevant evidence
- Analysing experience
- Reviewing progress
- Making the case to others.
Your enquiry will be conceived as an investigation of existing data and as a series of disciplined practice reflections and discussion, the review of literature and discourse with colleagues interested in healthcare improvement (personal and collective experience). Your review of experience will be drawn from your day-to-day practice and discussions with colleagues in your context. This module does not require you to design and conduct a research project (there are no questionnaires, interviews or data-gathering instruments to design) nor should your work be designed so as to require submission to a research ethics committee. Rather it relies on heightened skills of speculative reflection and debate associated with work that you conduct with others. It will be necessary therefore to select an enquiry that relates closely to your day-to-day healthcare improvement practice and to engage in reflection at a deeper level than you may currently be accustomed to. The study guide will instruct you in the relevant techniques to enable this. Working in this way, and combining what you learn from your review of evidence with current experience, you will be assisted to make a coherent case for improvement.
The study materials provide a scaffold that enables you to complete your enquiries and prepare work that you can demonstrate to others. The tutor-marked assignments and the end-of-module assessment constitute an exhibition of your enquiries those that illustrate disciplined powers of reflection and analysis. You will need to be well organised, focused and consultative in order to meet the assessment deadlines and complete your enquiries alongside other professional work. You will work on study blocks Review of relevant evidence and Analysing experience in parallel.
You will learn
On successful completion of this module you will be able to:
- systematically conduct enquiries in the literature, reflections on your own practice and local contexts, making appropriate records of your learning in ways that demonstrate scholarship
- disseminate your knowledge and skills in ways that are relevant to the development of practice now and in the future
- present clear observations, arguments and conclusions about your chosen aspect of practice, so that others could either replicate or build on your scholarship
- defend the advancement of practice within your enquiry, making the case to an appropriate authority.
Transferable skills
On successful completion of your module you will be able to:
- work collaboratively
- manage uncertainty
- translate concepts into practice
- demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems
- utilise information technology
- retrieve, interpret and utilise data (qualitative and quantitative), information and evidence.
Vocational relevance
This module is relevant to a wide range of people in health and social care settings: if you are already or wish in the future to engage in project-working with others, if you are charged with leadership and change agency roles, if you hope to innovate in practice or if you aspire to coach or advise others in their professional development. The module offers valuable opportunities to develop the communication and knowledge dissemination skills that are so important to those who advance professional practice. The module enables you to enhance your reflective practice abilities and will appeal to those who see personal and collegiate reflection as an important vehicle for continual improvement in practice. Because no assumptions are made with regard to the health or social setting, or the system within which the practitioner works, the module will also assist those working overseas, and in the voluntary sector (beyond the statutory provision in health or social care).
Entry
You should note that successful completion of Leading healthcare improvements (K827) and Researching and evaluating practice (K828) are both prerequisites for undertaking this module. As K827 and K828 are now discontinued, the exception is if a successful application for credit transfer is made to substitute for either K827 or K828.
It is a requirement that you have:
- a degree (FHEQ Level 6 / SCQF Level 9), conferred by a UK university or other recognised degree-awarding body
- access to a setting related to healthcare
- spoken and written English of an adequate standard for postgraduate study. If English is not your first language, we recommend that you will need a minimum overall score of 6 and minimum score of 5.5 in each of the four components: reading, writing, speaking and listening under the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Please see the IELTS website for details.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please speak to an adviser.
Preparatory work
Work designed to focus your plans on an appropriate aspect of practice should be conducted at the start of the module and with the guidance of your tutor. You will however benefit from considering aspects of practice you have explored in previous study that lend themselves to further enquiry.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
Although the study guide provides detailed guidance on the scholarly activity associated with this module and the online resources guide you on the different ways of formatting work for dissemination, you will work closely with your tutor to:
- identify and focus your chosen enquiry
- evaluate what the evidence review has taught you
- examine and refine reflective practice techniques
- make arguments based on supporting information
- formulate a case.
You'll have access to informative and engaging live online tutorials covering module related subjects and learning support, over a range of dates and times. We aim to record all online sessions to enable students the flexibility to access these at a convenient time.
Contact us if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) and end-of-module assessment (EMA) online through the eTMA system.
The end-of-module assessment (EMA) must be submitted online.