Interprofessional Online Learning in Healthcare Education

Since the tremendous growth in recognising interprofessional learning (IPL) in healthcare education (HCE) is essential for cultivating collaborative practice for securing quality patient care, many technologies were used as pedagogic means to implement IPL in higher education. At post-qualifying level, asynchronous text-based computer mediated conferencing (ACMC) is often used. Otherwise, many nurses and other allied healthcare professionals would not have been able to participate in HEI-based IPL. However, ACMC lacks the face-to-face dimension for clarification. Compounding this fact, embedded in nurses¿ language is power relations. Even if ACMC may be a promising pedagogic tool for achieving effective IPL, its associated problems cannot be ignored. This book provides a new perspective of ACMC as a pedagogic tool for IPL. The discursive practices of online participants are analysed using critical discourse analysis in an authentic online learning environment. The findings of which should shed some light on issues of text-based IPL and should be useful to healthcare academics and researchers, or for anyone who is either considering designing or participating in IPL based on ACMC.