Whilst online learning has gained rapid momentum, the development of online technology and practi... more Whilst online learning has gained rapid momentum, the development of online technology and practices that support the delivery of online courses with a large research component has been slow. In 2017, the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University, Australia, developed a potentially scalable and transferable online research portal. This is an all-in-one platform that is designed to facilitate and support online research and research supervision, for supervisors and students. The research portal has evolved to currently provide research and research supervision support to over 700 online psychology students at the university. This paper describes the development, implementation and impact of the research portal and presents data from a preliminary evaluation of its usability and user satisfaction. Both research students and supervisors from the fully online fourth-year Graduate Diploma of Psychology Advanced program at Monash University participated in a series of focus gr...
Background Peer support programs are promising approaches to diabetes prevention. However, there ... more Background Peer support programs are promising approaches to diabetes prevention. However, there is still limited evidence on the health benefits of peer support programs for lay peer leaders. Purpose To examine whether a peer support program designed for diabetes prevention resulted in greater improvements in health behaviors and outcomes for peer leaders as compared to other participants. Methods 51 lay peer leaders and 437 participants from the Kerala Diabetes Prevention Program were included. Data were collected at baseline, 12 months, and 24 months. We compared behavioral, clinical, biochemical, and health-related quality of life parameters between peer leaders and their peers at the three time-points. Results After 12 months, peer leaders showed significant improvements in leisure time physical activity (+ 17.7% vs. + 3.4%, P = 0.001) and health-related quality of life (0.0 vs. + 0.1, P = 0.004); and a significant reduction in alcohol use (-13.6% vs. -6.6%, P = 0.012) and 2-ho...
Within education, the online forum is becoming a preferred mode of study across the globe and the... more Within education, the online forum is becoming a preferred mode of study across the globe and the COVID-19 era highlights its importance. Research around online education has concentrated on the USA and Europe, and this study sought to redress the Western bias by exploring and comparing the perceptions of six postgraduate East-African students and lecturers at Pan Africa Christian University in Kenya on learning leadership online versus on-campus. It is debatable whether leaders are born or made; however, post-industrial theories embrace the concept that leadership is teachable. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed, using a top-down approach, from a critical realist perspective. The results show that participants' leadership ideals synthesised Afrocentric perspectives of communality, with Western ideals of transformational and servant leadership. Furthermore, there are differences between perceptions of East-African students and lecturers on online leadership learning. Students preferred the online avatar experience, whilst lecturers preferred on-campus or blended methods of leadership studies. Face-to-face connection was deemed important by students and lecturers but impeded by the inability to see facial reactions using the current online platform. This exploratory study gives insight into an East-African experience and sends a clear message to Kenyan institutions to invest further in video technology. Future research could include a longitudinal study of destinations and successes of Kenyan University online leadership alumni. The impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, with lockdowns and social distancing, further underlines the importance of ongoing online leadership research and education across the world.
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 2011
Objectives: Previous research has suggested people with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) are less l... more Objectives: Previous research has suggested people with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) are less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) if they receive prolonged structured diet and exercise advice. This study examined the within-trial cost-effectiveness of such lifestyle interventions.Methods: Screen-detected participants with either newly diagnosed T2DM or IFG were randomized 2:1 to intervention versus control (usual care) between February and December 2009, in Norfolk (UK). The intervention consisted of group based education, physiotherapy and peer support sessions, plus telephone contacts from T2DM volunteers. We monitored healthcare resource use, intervention costs, and quality of life (EQ-5D). The incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gain (incremental cost effectiveness ratio [ICER]), and cost effectiveness acceptability curves (CEAC) were estimated.Results: In total, 177 participants were recruited (118 intervention, 59 controls), with a mean follow-up of 7...
International Journal of Public Health, Aug 9, 2022
Objective: To describe the design, delivery and evaluation of the 3rd Global Alliance for Chronic... more Objective: To describe the design, delivery and evaluation of the 3rd Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) Implementation Science School (ISS), delivered virtually in 2020 for the first time. Methods: Since 2014, GACD has supported the delivery of more than ten Implementation Science Workshops for more than 500 international participants. It has also been conducting an annual ISS since 2018. In this study, we described the design, delivery and evaluation of the third ISS. Results: Forty-six participants from 23 countries in five WHO regions attended the program. The virtual delivery was well-received and found to be efficient in program delivery, networking and for providing collaborative opportunities for trainees from many different countries. The recently developed GACD Implementation Science e-Hub was found to be an instrumental platform to support the program by providing a stand-alone, comprehensive online learning space for knowledge and skill development in implementation research. Conclusion: The delivery of the virtual GACD ISS proved to be feasible, acceptable and effective and offers greater scalability and sustainability as part of a future strategy for capacity strengthening in implementation research globally.
The global online education sector has been rising rapidly, particularly during and after the eve... more The global online education sector has been rising rapidly, particularly during and after the events of 2020, and is becoming mainstream much sooner than expected. Despite this, research studies report higher levels of perceived isolation, difficulties with engagement, and higher attrition rates in online compared to equivalent on-campus programs. Reasons include restrictions to the type of institutional support accessible by online students, and the lack of comprehensiveness of orientation resources. This paper describes the collaborative efforts by a cross-faculty academic team, supported by a community of practice, to create a university-wide online orientation resource—the Monash Online Learning Hub (MOLH). The development of the MOLH involved multiple phases, including an analysis of current practice, resource design and content creation, formative evaluation by staff and students, and successful integration into the university’s mainstream student orientation platform for wide...
Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 2021
Despite the increase in the availability and popularity of online educational programs, there is ... more Despite the increase in the availability and popularity of online educational programs, there is a lack of understanding of non-academic as well as academic predictors of online student success. In this study, we have investigated predictors of tertiary level student success via the Psychology discipline, a popular online subject. A systematic literature review, followed by focus groups with students and instructors from online Psychology courses, revealed several important findings including a profile of general predictors of online student success and the existence of discipline-specific online student success predictors which can be extended to a variety of health care courses. Understanding the indicators of effective online education will allow course designers and instructors to develop strategies specific to the online mode and particular disciplines, enabling implementation of evidence-based education practices, which can support academic and non-academic student success in ...
Additional file 1 of Cost-effectiveness of a lifestyle intervention in high-risk individuals for diabetes in a low- and middle-income setting: Trial-based analysis of the Kerala Diabetes Prevention Program
Additional file 1: Table S1. Unit costs used for calculating direct and indirect costs. Table S2.... more Additional file 1: Table S1. Unit costs used for calculating direct and indirect costs. Table S2. Baseline characteristics of clusters and participants.
Additional file 2: Table S4â Table S7 of A systematic review of real-world diabetes prevention programs: learnings from the last 15Â years
Detailed scoring of all included studies based on the elements of the PIPE Impact Metric framewor... more Detailed scoring of all included studies based on the elements of the PIPE Impact Metric framework. (PDF 772 KB)
randomised controlled trial of a peer-led setting and goal review; (5) the health education bookl... more randomised controlled trial of a peer-led setting and goal review; (5) the health education booklet that is given to the control arm. Follow-up assessments are Sathish et al. BMC Public Health 2013, 13:1035
Advances in technology and in associated online education technological capacities are contributi... more Advances in technology and in associated online education technological capacities are contributing to the rapid growth and increasing effectiveness of online education. The rapidly expanding digital landscape is allowing online education to achieve equivalence and in some ways beyond equivalence with traditional learning, including by enhancing collaborative learning opportunities and by removing geographical and other barriers, including those relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, and providing a custom learning experiences for varied learners. Increasingly commonly used online education features include state-of-the-art Learning Management Systems, eWorkbooks, teleconferencing systems including Zoom and eTutorials. Emerging online education features include open-source collaboration frameworks such as the HTML5 Package (or H5P), simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) features. This chapter describes some increasingly widely used and also emerging online education technological features, as convenient resourcse for online education developers, teachers and students. 6.1 Technological Advancement and Innovations in Online Education Online education has seen tremendous growth in recent years (Grinder et al. 2019) and this growth has recently been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Advances in information and communication technology supporting online education have helped to accelerate the delivery of educational curricula outside of traditional classrooms and help online courses provide their students with an optimal balance of study and potentially competing life priorities including work and family (Croxton 2014). Furthermore, the recent growth and rapid expansion in the development and use
Cost-effectiveness of a peer-support lifestyle intervention for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in India: within-trial analysis of the Kerala Diabetes Prevention Program
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Papers by Zahra Aziz