ANZAHPE ONLINE Professional Development Program
'Maximising feedback through an educational alliance'

Presenter: Associate Professor Rola Ajjawi

Feedback is the powerhouse of learning in health professions education (HPE). Yet done badly, it can demotivate and deactivate learning or worse leave long term emotional scars. Unfortunately, unhelpful myths about feedback have developed over time. In this talk, I pose an alternative approach to ‘balanced’ sandwiches, and objective, decontextualised rules for feedback; instead to maximise feedback we need to build strong educational alliances. The educational alliance, drawn from the therapeutic alliance, poses feedback as a process, done with others within the context of a good working relationship. It is based on three pillars – the learner perceiving a strong bond with their educator and having shared goals and activities. I will share the evidence base for the educational alliance, its limitations, and the conditions that foster its development within HPE.

Rola Ajjawi is Associate Professor of Education Research, at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), Deakin University. She has been researching health professions education since starting her PhD in 2003 building an international research portfolio in feedback, clinical supervision and assessment-for-inclusion. She has been Deputy Editor of Medical Education since 2013, leads a taskforce on inclusion and diversity, and chairs the AMEE Doctoral Research Award Group. In 2021, Rola was awarded a Karolinska Institute Prize for Research in Medical Education.

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A recording of this session will be made available to all ANZAHPE members and non-member registrants following the session.