The grant of $209,000 will look at practical ways to adapt and apply a “thriving in transition” model to different settings and with a range of health science students.

In partnership with two other university departments of rural health (UDRHs), UTAS has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching council (ALTC) Strategic Priority Project Grant to investigate and better support the transition of rural students as they move from home to study health professional courses at university.

The grant of $209,000 will look at practical ways to adapt and apply a “thriving in transition” model to different settings and with a range of health science students. By working with transition coordinators and student counsellors at university campuses in Tasmania, W.A. and N.S.W., this project will contribute to those activities and initiatives currently taken by universities to assist student transition. This research targets the assistance provided to rural students, including those from lower socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, to enable them to better manage and cope with their transition to tertiary study - especially where this may involve a physical re-location. 

As a collaborative project, the UTAS-UDRH team (Dr Martin Harris and Dr Tony Barnett) will be working closely with Professor Sandy Thompson and Judy Riggs from the Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health (W.A.) and with Professor Lesley Barclay and Frances Barraclough from the Northern Rivers University Centre for Rural Health (NSW).

The project will assist transition coordinators initiate early interventions with students to help them recognise when support may be required, how to access and best utilise such support and then to learn from these experiences so that they are better equipped to manage similar challenges in the future.  By detailing these activities and providing guidelines that may be used or adapted for use by universities across a range of different cohorts of students, this project will contribute to the enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education. It will also help improve the “success” of rural students in studying and completing health professional courses and in this way contribute to a range of rural health workforce initiatives that seek to bolster the number of health care professionals choosing to live and work in rural and remote areas.

For further information, contact Dr Martin Harris: Project Leader
Martin.harris@utas.edu.au
Ph +61 3 6324 4029