AUTHOR=McKenna Declan J. 

TITLE=Non-Laboratory Project-Based Learning for Final Year Bioscience Students: Lessons From COVID-19

JOURNAL=British Journal of Biomedical Science

VOLUME=80

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/british-journal-of-biomedical-science/articles/10.3389/bjbs.2023.11561

DOI=10.3389/bjbs.2023.11561

ISSN=2474-0896

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Provision of “dry-lab” final year honours projects, based outside the laboratory, have been proposed as a viable alternative to traditional “wet-lab” projects in bioscience subjects, but their value has not been widely evaluated to date. In 2020–21, the COVID-19 pandemic meant all students in the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ulster University (UU) undertook dry-lab projects, due to campus lockdown. Therefore, this provided an ideal opportunity to evaluate the provision of dry-lab projects in a large student cohort.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> A pilot group of final year students (<italic>n</italic> = 4) studying Biomedical Science at UU were interviewed to evaluate their experience of conducting a dry-lab project. This evaluation and the themes that emerged were subsequently used to inform the co-creation of a survey to appraise student experience of dry-lab research project learning across the final year student cohort in School of Biomedical Sciences (<italic>n</italic> = 140). Quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analysed for trends and themes.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The results of this project identified four main themes related to dry-lab projects; expectations, skills &amp; employability, quality of experience and choice. Student expectations about dry-lab projects were not dramatically changed, although initial negative opinions of some individuals were over-turned. Most students recognised that they had developed many useful employability skills through dry-lab projects, although lack of practical laboratory experience was still perceived as a drawback. Student experience was influenced by personal circumstances but students reporting poor project experience had significantly lower levels of communication with supervisor (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). Most students agreed that choice of dry- and wet-lab projects would be valuable for future cohorts.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> This report concludes that dry-lab project provision can be a suitable and equitable alternative for wet-lab projects. Dry-lab projects can be valuable for learning new skills and may be an attractive option for some students and supervisors who prefer to work outside the laboratory setting. A choice of both dry-lab and wet-lab projects is highly recommended as it provides more choice for students to tailor their final year experience to their individual circumstances, strengths and future career aspirations.</p>