Professor
Division: none
Address: #429J – 2194 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z3
Phone: 604-822-8615
Email: rola.ajjawi@ubc.ca
Bio:
Rola Ajjawi 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 $2.5Million 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.
Publications:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0651-3870
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=uFaXeLYAAAAJ&hl=en