Rola Ajjawi, BAppSc(Physiotherapy)Hons, PhD
Scientist
Dr. Rola Ajjawi is a Medical Education Research Professor. She studied physiotherapy and became a clinical teacher before completing a PhD in health professions education examining how clinical reasoning is learned and communicated in practice. She leads several programs of research into feedback and workplace learning cultures, student failure and success, and latterly belonging and well-being in health professions education. Her research has attracted over $2.5 million in funding and is well cited with her latest edited volume published in 2023: Ajjawi R, Tai J, Boud D, and Jorre de St Jorre T. (Eds.) Assessment for Inclusion in Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Social Justice (Routledge, open access). Rola is Deputy Editor of the journal Medical Education and chair of the International Association for Health Professions Education (AMEE) Research Committee. She was awarded a Karolinska Institutet Fellowship in 2021 for excellence in medical education research. She is lead guest editor of a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education: Reconsidering the role of authenticity in assessment in higher education and is editing a virtual special issue of the journal Medical Education on gender.
Research Interests
My research seeks to create learning environments that support health professional trainees to succeed. I am interested particularly in the messiness of practice and workplace learning, examining how supervision can be embedded into clinical practices, how feedback processes unfold, and how to create equitable assessment in the workplace. My research is strongly theoretical and qualitative and highly relational; I wish to reveal the taken for granted assumptions about and hidden complexities of practice. An important theme in my work is extending understanding of methodologies that unravel the complexities of practice.
Publication Highlights
Bearman M, & Ajjawi R. When I say … Artificial Intelligence. Medical Education. doi: 10.1111/medu.15408. (Online early.)
Ajjawi R, Bearman M, O’Brien B, Luong V, & Varpio L. Researching lived experience in health professional education. Medical Education. doi: 10.1111/medu.15361. (Online early.)
Noble C, Hilder J, Billett S, Teodorczuk A, & Ajjawi R. (2023). Supervisory knowing in practice across medical specialities. Advances in Health Sciences Education. doi: 10.1007/s10459-023-10251-w. (Online early.)
Gravett K, & Ajjawi R. (2022). Belonging as situated practice. Studies in Higher Education, 47(7): 1386-1396. doi:10.1080/03075079.2021.1894118.
Ajjawi R, Olson R, McNaughton N. (2022) Emotion as reflexive practice: A new discourse for feedback practice and research. Medical Education 56(5):480-488. doi:10.1111/medu.14700.
Ajjawi R, & Boud D. (2017). Researching feedback dialogue: An interactional analysis approach. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 42(2). 252-265 doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1102863.
Varpio L, Ajjawi R, Monrouxe L, O’Brien B, & Rees CE. (2017). Shedding the cobra effect: Problematising thematic emergence, triangulation, saturation and member checking. Medical Education 51(1): 40-50. doi: 10.1111/medu.13124.
Presentation Highlights
Ajjawi R. (2023.) Assessment and feedback on placement: international perspectives. Munster Technological University, Ireland.
Ajjawi R. (2023.) Enabling Assessment for Inclusion in Health Professions Education’ Closing plenary AMEE Conference, Glasgow, UK.
Ajjawi R. (2022.) Feedback cultures in health professions education. Plenary Viet Nam 5th Medical Education Conference Health Professions and Standards at a Time of Change.
Ajjawi R. (2021.) Authentic to whom? Student experiences of authenticity of assessment. Plenary Second International Meeting on Teaching, Learning and Evaluation in Higher Education, Chile.
Ajjawi R. (2021.) Feedback as a situated practice: what makes for an effective educational alliance? Plenary Academy at Harvard Medical School Annual Symposium on the Science of Learning, USA.
Awards
- Teaching in Higher Education Editors’ Choice Award for the Article: Ajjawi R, Gravett K, & O’Shea, S. (2023). The politics of student belonging: Identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education. doi:10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261 (2024)
- Karolinska Institutet Fellowship for Excellence in Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME), Karolinska Institutet, Sweden (2021)
- Australian National Research Field leader in Science & Engineering Education (2020 and 2021)
Current Grants
- Macleod et al. (2024-2026) Sacred Discourses: Exploring Medical Educators’ Perspectives on Competence, Science, and Professionalism. Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight grant. (2024-2026),$252,807.
- Ajjawi R, Bearman M, Tai J, Dollinger M, Crawford N. Negotiating learning in post-pandemic higher education: the role of agency, belonging and support. Higher Education Participation and Partnership Program. (2023-2024), $160,000.
- Macleod et al. (2023-2024) Underrepresented in medicine: A meta-ethnography of underrepresented students’ experiences of medical school. SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant. (2023-2024), $29,935.
- Mattick K, Carrieri D, Noble C, Conn R, Ajjawi R. Feedback conversations that improve prescribing practices: a sociometrical study in the UK and Australia. ASME PhD Studentship. (2023-2026).