Dr Sally Lewis

Excludes commercial-in-confidence projects.

Research outputs for the last seven years are shown below. Some long-standing staff members may have older outputs included. To see earlier years visit ORCID, ResearcherID or Scopus

Open access indicates that an output is open access.

Highlights

Chapters

Journal Articles

Conferences

Reports

Other outputs

Lewis, S. and Andrew, J. (2018). Peer 2 Peer: Interdisciplinary student teamwork to develop and implement industry based projects.  Australian Collaborative Education Network

Lewis, S. (2015). Blended learning approaches in advanced communication courses. Report to the School of Communication, International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia, Australia

Lewis, S. (2012). Industry Report: Public Communication & Tertiary Education Choice. University of South Australia, Australia

Lewis, S. (2010). Portrayal of selected tertiary education organisations in controlled communication materials. Report to the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science & Technology, South Australia, Australia

Lewis, S. (2009). The portrayal of vocational and higher education in the media. Industry presentation to the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science & Technology, South Australia, Australia

2023: UniSA Creative Award for Innovation in Research

Current Projects

2023/24: Online Interdisciplinary Work-Integrated Learning: Review of Practice

Dr Sally Lewis and Dr Kim Burley are reviewing the pedagogical approach, industry partner role and student outcomes in the UniSA Online capstone communication course, COMM 3077 Integrated Communication Planning 2020-2023. This course aims to enhance the employability of UniSA graduates through interdisciplinary project-based, work-integrated learning (WIL). The project draws upon the need for greater collaboration between universities and our industry partners, and students as partners in the learning process. This project will not only enhance student employability but also build university and industry staff capacity with the integration of interdisciplinary, project-based and WIL approaches to education and support the national WIL strategy (ACEN et al., 2015). Project-based learning can improve quality of learning and teaching and contribute to development of high-level employability skills required for the contemporary workplace (Lasauskiene & Rauduvaite, 2015). Literature indicates that team­ based learning reduces attrition rates, promotes better student attitudes, and improves both critical thinking and academic performance of students (Freeman et al., 2014). The study will contribute to current scholarship into team based learning which calls for authentic course design (Adachi et al.,2018) that is contextualised (Brown & Race, 2021).

2023/24: Designing a learning environment to encourage post graduate student interaction with work-integrated learning tasks

Dr Sally Lewis and Dr Debbie Devis are researching the connection between student engagement and gamified motivation. Encouraging students to engage with preparatory tasks before attending class is universally challenging (Li et al., 2020) and this study explored what motivated, or did not motivate, students to engage with weekly pre-seminar tasks. The course for this study, Communication and Media: Advanced was a post graduate course with a high proportion of international students. An online anonymous survey was conducted over 4 weeks followed by a focus group, to understand what helped/motivated the students to do the required preparatory work, or what prevented them. In the course, seminar activities have been developed that give students a choice in providing real-world examples linking key communication theories to reporting in the media from either Australia or ‘home’. This approach develops active listening skills, breaks down barriers between students, assists students overcoming their concerns presenting in front of an audience when English is their second language, and provides new and interesting global perspectives. This format is intended to increase valuable employability skills through the adoption of a socio-constructivist informed teaching approach based on real-world problem solving (Bednar 1992). By acknowledging students learn through connecting ideas and experience with their own knowledge and understanding we can cater for diverse learners.

Results indicated strong agreement that preparatory activities assist students with completing in-class tasks. However, responses also indicated there was an opportunity to engage the students further with the preparatory activities. Key suggestions include re-framing theoretical based readings, or readings that used complex and formal language, and further expanding on the connection between the weekly content and its application to work based practice. Student feedback also identified an opportunity to increase engagement and motivation through the use of apps and gamifying their learning progress. Research (Borras-Gene et al., 2019; Looyestyn et al., 2017) suggests gamification, the inclusion of game-like fun elements, can encourage engagement for online higher education students. It is less clear how effective ‘rewarding’ on-campus students for completing learning tasks could be.

2022/23: The role of technology-mediated feedback pre and post COVID-19: A case study of first-year communication students

This study (paper in review) aims to build on 2021/22 research focusing on the role of technology mediated feedback in the development of self-regulation of commencing university students (Sauchelli et al., 2023), and a 2019 study (Lewis et al., 2020) that examined the relationship between characteristics of self-regulation and responses to technology-mediated feedback. With the emergence of educational changes, such as the increase in online and hybrid learning (Palvia et al., 2018) due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Scull et al., 2020), the current study aims to compare the effectiveness of technology-mediated feedback from the previous pre-pandemic study (Lewis et al., 2020) to a current first year university communication course post-pandemic in 2022.