Digitally Enhanced Practical Education in the Health Sciences (DEPTH)

This project advanced digital transformation in health sciences education, aligning with the National Digital Strategy and supporting teaching and learning in a digital world, a HEA priority. We explored opportunities and barriers to digitally enhanced practical teaching, analysed perspectives from students and academics, and tested the feasibility/efficacy of teaching methods. This innovative methodology informed the creation of an open educational resource (OER) – a scalable model for integrating technology into teaching.

The project has generated an OER, three peer-reviewed articles (paper1 paper2 paper3), and presentations at two national and two international conferences (London Tokyo), enhancing Ireland’s visibility in digital pedagogy. Impact is evident through strong student engagement, including a student advisory committee, one student was highly commended at the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland Student Research Awards, and five undergraduates became published authors. Outcomes have clearly benefitted stakeholders locally and nationally while supporting Ireland’s broader digital transformation agenda.

SATLE priority area: Digital Transformation

Context and Needs Addressed

Traditionally, teaching and learning practical skills are seen as best suited to face-to-face instruction. Restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic challenged this assumption, forcing both educators and students to innovate in how practical skills were acquired, and highlighted a pressing need to explore digital approaches to practical teaching when access to laboratories, clinical sites, and patients was severely limited. The DEPTH project emerged as a response to these challenges. It sought to consolidate and evaluate the positive educational innovations that arose during the pandemic.

As a highly collaborative piece of work which supported collegial knowledge sharing groups, the project also aligns with Trinity College’s Strategic Plan, which states that “digital transformation is much more than a technological upgrade. It requires a change in how we do our work and how we serve our mission.” DEPTH addressed the local need to evaluate the efficacy of digital methods for imparting practical skills while ensuring continued student success and educational excellence.

Goals and Key Activities

DEPTH was designed to examine how digital technologies could effectively support the acquisition and assessment of practical skills. The project’s specific aims were to:

• Identify opportunities and barriers to digitally enhanced practical teaching – Achieved as evidenced by our OER, paper2 and paper3.
• Analyse student, academic, and clinical professional perspectives on these teaching methods -Achieved as evidenced by our OER paper2 and paper3.
• Evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of digital methods for skill acquisition and assessment, in partnership with students -Achieved as evidenced by our OER and paper1.
• Develop an Open Educational Resource (OER) informed by research findings to guide future practice – Achieved as evidenced by our OER.

The OER produced through DEPTH includes:

• A synthesis of opportunities, barriers, and considerations for digital practical skill acquisition.
• An analysis of which types of skills are most suited to digital teaching and assessment.
• Practical recommendations for educators and learners on implementing digital pedagogies.
• Case studies illustrating how practical skills can be successfully acquired using technology.

Our project adopts a collaborative approach with students, not only by inviting their participation but also by establishing a DEPTH Student Advisory Group. This partnership model ensured that outcomes were co-created and reflective of authentic student experiences.

The evidence generated from DEPTH informed the School of Medicine’s Online Education Strategy and Policy, contributing to institution-wide decisions about the use of digital teaching and assessment methods post-pandemic. Furthermore, DEPTH’s design and methodology, combining empirical research with educational innovation, has wide applicability across other disciplines in higher education.

Key Stakeholders

• Students from health science disciplines are central participants and co-researchers, contributing to both data collection and project design.
• Academic staff from Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin currently collaborate on pedagogical research and implementation.
• Professional staff, including digital learning technologists, supported the design, delivery, and evaluation of digital teaching approaches.

The goals outlined above have been achieved however DEPTH continues to evolve and has expanded to include two students focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR), extending our innovation and the relevance of DEPTH to contemporary digital education priorities.

Challenges Encountered and How They Were Addressed

1. Talent Acquisition:

   As part of DEPTH a research assistant was hired. The post had to be advertised and interviewed for twice as during the first round of interviews no suitable candidate was found. Overall, waiting for the right candidate was the correct course of action, however it did delay our work by 3 months.

2. Integrating Research into Teaching Practice:

   Embedding experimental research designs within existing curricula proved challenging, particularly for credit-bearing modules where randomised controlled trials could create inequities between student groups. To address this, the team adopted context-sensitive methodological approaches to ensure fairness while maintaining research rigour.

3. Sustainability and Funding:

   DEPTH received initial SATLE funding in 2021 but has not been formally funded since. Despite this, work in this area has continued, mainly through leveraging student projects, demonstrating enduring impact and commitment to advancing evidence-based digital education.

4. Keeping Pace with Rapid Technological Change:

   The original OER did not address emerging areas such as AI and VR, which have since grown significantly. Current DEPTH activities address these domains, ensuring ongoing relevance.

Outcomes and Impact

DEPTH generated actionable, evidence-based insights into digital approaches for practical skill acquisition, contributing directly to student success and educational resilience. The OER produced helps educators and learners make informed, evidence-based decisions on how to integrate technology into skill-based education.

The project’s influence has extended long beyond its initial funding period. As of 2025, related research continues to be disseminated internationally. A poster was presented at an international conference in Tokyo in May 2025, and a peer-reviewed paper was submitted for publication in June 2025. DEPTH exemplifies how digital pedagogy, when grounded in collaboration and research, can transform the teaching and learning in a digital world.

Strategic alignment with national policies and relevant SATLE priority area

DEPTH (Digitally Enhanced Practical Teaching in Health Sciences) is strongly aligned with Ireland’s national priorities on digital transformation in education, as articulated across several key policy frameworks. Examples are listed below.

DEPTH contributes to Harnessing Digital – The Digital Ireland Framework, (2022). It contributes specifically to the aim of that policy of “providing digital skills for all – from school, to further and higher education”

DEPTH aligns with the National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 which emphasises the importance of education being “supported through innovative approaches to research-led teaching and learning”.

Our work also aligns with Digital for Care: A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-2030 which commits to “evaluate and invest in emerging technologies” in the context of healthcare. Something which is essential to begin in a Higher Education Setting for our future healthcare professionals.

DEPTH aligns with more local policy documents and in particular the newly launched Thrive Strategy in Trinity College Dublin which underlines the need to change how we work and to leverage digital technology to do just that.

DEPTH contributes directly to the Digital Transformation of Teaching and Learning priority area of the National Higher Education Authority (HEA) as it calls for institutions to embrace technology not simply as a tool, but as a means of reimagining how education is delivered and experienced. DEPTH achieves this by leveraging digital pedagogy to support the effective acquisition of practical skills, an area traditionally considered resistant to online and digitally supported learning.

Having commenced in 2021, our project also took note of the Irish National Digital Experience (INDEx) Survey goals, which advocate for enhanced digital confidence and capability among both staff and students. By investigating barriers, opportunities, and stakeholder perspectives on digital practical teaching, DEPTH generated evidence that informs digital upskilling, inclusion, and pedagogical best practice, ensuring that technology enhances, rather than replaces, meaningful human engagement in learning.

Furthermore, DEPTH reflects the principles of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s priority areas particularly its emphasis on evidence-based digital innovation and student partnership. By co-designing and evaluating digital teaching approaches with students, DEPTH operationalises these national values.

Collectively it is clear that DEPTH aligns closely and strongly with many relevant national policies. Emphasising the role of digital innovation in improving teaching quality, improving healthcare, and fostering lifelong learning, are all central tenets of DEPTH. Finally through the open access OER, international publications and our work being cited in a policy document of the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation Research and Education, this project contributes not only to institutional goals but also to the broader national agenda of positioning Ireland as a leader in digitally enhanced higher education.

Innovation in specified SATLE priority area

The DEPTH (Digitally Enhanced Practical Teaching in Health Sciences) project exemplifies innovation within the SATLE priority area of Digital Transformation, fundamentally reimagining how practical skills can be taught, learned, and assessed in higher education. Traditionally, the acquisition of practical and clinical competencies has been viewed as incompatible with online or digitally mediated instruction. DEPTH directly challenged this assumption by investigating how technology could not only replicate but enhance practical teaching and learning experiences. Although there is a lot of context and subject specific variation in this area, results showed that the strength of digitally enhanced teaching in this area lies in hybrid approaches.

A hallmark of DEPTH’s innovative approach was its co-creation model with students. A dedicated Student Advisory Group was established, ensuring that learners were not merely participants but active partners in research design, data interpretation, and resource development. This model of student–staff partnership is a key driver of digital transformation in education, aligning closely with SATLE’s emphasis on collaboration, evidence-based innovation, and pedagogical renewal.

Another innovation related to this work was that the project employed a rigorous mixed-methods design to evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, and inclusivity of digitally enhanced practical teaching. Such methodologies are not aften used in pedagogical work. Further detail is available in paper1 paper2 and paper3.

This research directly informed the creation of our Open Educational Resource (OER), a scalable and transferable model for integrating technology into the teaching of practical skills generally. The OER is an interactive, accessible and innovative method of dissemination for educators with evidence-based recommendations, case studies, and tips for effectively incorporating digital tools such as video-based learning, simulation, and online education into practical instruction.

DEPTH has achieved significant research and dissemination impact. To date, three peer-reviewed papers have been published, with a fourth paper currently under review. Project findings have been presented at two national and two international conferences, enhancing Ireland’s visibility and leadership in digital pedagogy and health sciences education.

The project’s success is also reflected in interinstitutional collaboration (currently between UCD and TCD) strong student engagement and achievement. One student researcher was highly commended at the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland Student Research Awards, and five undergraduate students became published authors, demonstrating authentic student partnership and capacity building in educational research.

As well as partnership with students, our work reaches out to the community to involve patient populations ensuring that perspectives from all relevant stakeholders are captured in our research. This multi-perspective approach evidences innovation in higher education digital transformation.

At the institutional level, DEPTH informed the development of the first Online Education Strategy and Policy within Trinity College Dublin’s School of Medicine, providing a blueprint for digital pedagogy integration that has potential applicability across the university and wider higher education sector.

Overall, DEPTH represents an innovative transformative model of how research-led, student-partnered innovation can advance effective digital transformation, enhancing teaching practice, supporting student success, and strengthening Ireland’s reputation as a leader in digital higher education.

Outcomes

Evidence of Achieved Impact

1. Student Success

At the local level within Trinity College Dublin’s School of Medicine, the DEPTH project informed how practical skills are taught and learned. A key driver of impact was the student–staff partnership model. This partnership model led to tangible student benefits:

• Throughout their involvement with the DEPTH project, five undergraduate students became published authors, and one was highly commended by the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland Student Research Awards, evidencing capacity building and student empowerment.
• A research assistant who was central to the success of the DEPTH project has since become a registered PhD student. Their experience working on DEPTH ignited within them a motivation to pursue a career in research and education.
• Crucially, DEPTH informed and shaped the School of Medicine’s first Online Education Strategy and Policy, which helped to streamline student experiences with various platforms and leverage technologies safely and effectively for both those who teach and those who learn.
• DEPTH has grown since its inception in 2021 and recently expanded to include cutting edge technological tools. There are currently two PhD students working on research projects related to technology in pedagogy specific to practical skills in the health sciences – one concentrating on artificial intelligence and the other on virtual reality.

2. Staff Success: Collaboration and Professional Development

Staff also benefited significantly from the DEPTH project, which supported educators in judiciously adopting blended and digitally enhanced methods of practical teaching.

• DEPTH fostered a community of digital teaching practice within the School of Medicine, encouraging experimentation and reflective pedagogy. This was achieved primarily through the creation of an Open Educational Resource which was hosted on the National Teaching and Learning Forum’s OpenCourse.ie and also at an institutional level through TCD.ie (https://tcdmedonline.ie/DEPTH/story.html).
• The DEPTH OER was launched in 2022 but remains a well utilised resource with over 130 recorded accesses this calendar year on the TCD hosted site alone, demonstrating continuing engagement and scalability. The OER is completely open access and provides staff with a sustainable, evidence-based reference tool for designing and implementing digital practical teaching.
• Currently, DEPTH is contributing to cross-institutional collaboration and professional capacity building across Irish higher education. The project team now includes academics from Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, as well as students and professional staff.
• The methodological framework developed through DEPTH, combining mixed-methods educational research with co-creation of tools and resources, is a replicable and scalable model which can be used to support digital transformation in any setting.
• Research stemming from the DEPTH project, which includes a set of recommendations aimed at academic staff, has been widely disseminated through publications and conference proceedings.

3. National Impact: Advancing Ireland’s Digital Transformation Agenda

Nationally, DEPTH directly supports Ireland’s strategic goal of digital transformation in higher education, as outlined by the The Digital Ireland Framework (2022) and aligns with the EU Structured Dialogue on Digital Education and Skills. By generating robust evidence on how technology can enhance practical clinical education, DEPTH contributes to the realisation of policy objectives and positions Ireland as a leader in digitally enhanced teaching and learning.

The project’s influence is evidenced through significant research dissemination and sectoral visibility:

• Three peer-reviewed publications have been published to date, with a fourth under review (2025). (See https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2023.2256656 and https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2022.2068210 and https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-024-02026-8)
• Findings have been presented at two national and two international conferences (London and Tokyo), strengthening Ireland’s profile in digital pedagogy and educational research.
• Output from the DEPTH project has been cited in a policy document of the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation Research and Education. Through these activities, DEPTH has contributed to Ireland’s growing international reputation for evidence-based innovation in higher education.

4. Replicability and Sustainable Embedding

• DEPTH’s outputs, particularly the Open Educational Resource, published papers, and recommendations, provide a scalable model that can be adapted across disciplines beyond the health sciences. The OER’s modular design enables other institutions to tailor digital teaching strategies to their specific disciplinary and learner contexts.
• Sustainability has been achieved through the continued activity of the DEPTH research team, which, despite the conclusion of formal SATLE funding, remains active in advancing research in digital pedagogy. The team now includes two student researchers exploring artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) applications in practical teaching, extending the project’s legacy into new frontiers of digital transformation.

The project’s enduring influence on both educational policy and practice demonstrates that it has achieved sustained and meaningful impact beyond its initial scope. Overall DEPTH has generated clear, measurable, and sustainable benefits for students, staff, and the higher education sector. DEPTH’s success illustrates that digital transformation, when grounded in co-creation and research, can deliver lasting improvements to teaching, learning, and educational culture locally, regionally, and nationally.