HOW WE USE VALUES-EXCHANGE IN NUI GALWAY

This poster tracks the work in progress introducing the Values Exchange (VX) (www.values-exchange. com) as a research and teaching resource at the National University of Ireland (NUI), Galway. VX is an innovation in teaching and e-learning for social sciences. VX enables student-led interaction and challenges students as they think about authentic case studies that pose ethical dilemmas from different aspects of social care practice. The VX guides students using pre-formed questions that prompt individual responses to case studies. Data are generated both at an individual level and collectively from a group. Responses are collated automatically producing thirty-three research reports for analysis and discussion. VX facilitates research, teaching and learning by providing immediate and extensive discussion material that can form the basis of individual, collaborative and inter-disciplinary research projects. In September 2009, NUI Galway introduced the VX to students, staff and stakeholders involved in the BA in Social Care programme. The aim of this research project is to explore how the VX can, simultaneously, serve as a teaching tool and open up areas of debate that require further research. The VX teaching and research team will use the reasoning data from the VX case study identified by stakeholders concerning the issue of 'Do Not Resuscitate' being written on client's notes. The researchers will use data generated by students who are currently working in the area of social care to analyse how carers approach this ethical issue.