Findings from focus groups on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on Let’s go e- Module AcaDemic skills (MAD)!

Within (psychology) bachelor programs at universities, first-year students often find it challenging to familiarize with and master academic skills (such as using literature, hypothesizing, operationalizing variables, etc.). To provide additional practice alongside mandatory curricular activities, the e-module was designed to offer practice with these skills. The e-module consists of four case studies, corresponding with four major areas of interest in psychology (clinical, cognitive, developmental and social psychology). The e-module offers scaffolded practice by progressing from multiple-choice questions with verification feedback and the correct answer to open-ended questions with self- assessment according to an expert answer. With the goal of optimizing the e-module before deployment and conducting a large-scale effect study, we conducted a pilot study with five second-year students and two first-year teachers to ‘test-drive’ the e-module and record their experiences, such as their perception of the usefulness of the e-module and the obstacles they perceived while using the e-module. The students emphasized potential obstacles, such as a large time investment and an unfamiliarity with topics and question format. Moreover, they appeared less able to pinpoint the skill-goals of the e-module. Teachers, on the other hand, were able to identify the academic skills separately, and primarily emphasized the contribution of this extra practice to mastery of academic skills. This discrepancy between student and teacher experiences, necessitates embedding the e-module in the curriculum alongside sufficient instruction about the use of academic skills during the working groups. Moreover, this discrepancy also underscores the importance of student input in (deployment of) such educational innovations.