Associate Professor Chinthaka Damith Balasooriya

My Expertise

I have led a focused program of research that targeted specific educational problems. I have conducted this work utilising 12 educational grants including a Category 1 research grant from the National Heart Foundation of Australia. My research comes under the umbrella of Educational Design Research (McKenney & Reeves 2015), which is a process of iterative development of solutions to complex practical educational problems. Examples of outputs from this work include guidelines to increase student engagement in small group learning and an instrument to better engage clinician engagement with clinical guidelines. Doctoral projects supervised by me have led to the design of educational instruments that enhance collaborative learning skills and clinical collaborative skills.

Keywords

medical education

student learning in higher education

curriculum design

teamwork

collaborative learning

Fields of Research (FoR)

Deep learning, Curriculum and pedagogy, Teacher education and professional development of educators, Higher education, Primary health care, Medicine, nursing and health curriculum and pedagogy

SEO tags

Education and Training

Learner and Learning Processes

Assessment and Evaluation of Curriculum

Education and Training Theory and Methodology

Biography

Dr Chinthaka Balasooriya is a nationally recognised expert in Medical Education. His expertise has been recognised by a range of university and national level wards which include the Faculty of Medicine Teaching Excellence award, a Vice-Chancellors Award for Teaching Excellence, and an Australian Learning & Teaching Council Citation.

Full details available on myEducation Portfolio: view more

Full details available on myEducation Portfolio: http://myeducationportfolio.unsw.edu.au/profile/109?authkey=cd74ca7ecda62f9397c8b7ebd6686144136b6d9a4003195610820ef67999e0f0

Chinthaka has led a range of research projects in medical education. He recently led a research project funded by the National Heart Foundation of Australia, which aims to enhance the development of clinical reasoning skills in GP trainees and enhance the use of clinical guidelines. He has supervised research into contextual influences on clinical-decision making, the development and evaluation of educational strategies to enhance clinicians’ decision-making skills, and the design and evaluation of educational instruments to develop collaborative learning and clinical collaborative competencies. In addition to his research activities, he has made a high quality contribution to the design and implementation of the UNSW Medicine program over the last 20 years. He also conducts a range of staff development activities at UNSW and at universities overseas and is an Honorary Professor in Medical Education at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Dr Balasooriya also has expertise in the area of Students’ Approaches to Learning. Research projects in this area explore ways to optimise the impact of educational innovations, by promoting deeper approaches to learning across students with varying learning preferences. He has a particular interest in developing more effective methods to evaluate the impact of educational innovations.

Chinthaka has held significant leadership roles in health professional education, and served as President of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) 2018-2020. He is a Scientia Education Fellow at UNSW and is a Fellow of ANZAHPE. He serves on the ASPIRE Board of the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), and as the Chair of the International Collaborations Panel of the AMEE ASPIRE Awards.

Broad Research Areas
Medical Education

Specific Research Keywords

Clinical decision making

Clinical reasoning

Guideline Enhancement Tool

Clinical Collaborative competencies

TMEX

Students' Approaches to Learning

Cross-over phenomenon

Collaborative Learning

Curriculum Design

Deep Learning

Current Faculty of Medicine profile available at: http://med.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-chinthaka-balasooriya

View UNSW TV Videos

1. Staff Development: New Facilitator Training: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/new-facilitator-training-session-2-june-2020-chinthaka-balasooriya

2. Exemplar videos on Teaching in Phase 1 Medicine:

A) Debriefing a scenario: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/debriefing-a-scenario-3

B) Introducing an activity: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/introducing-an-activity-2

C) Running an activity: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/running-an-activity

3. Scientia Education Fellowship: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/chinthaka-balasooriya1

4. Scientia Education Academy Lecture by Chinthaka Balasooriya: All the world's a stage: https://thebox.unsw.edu.au/video/dr-chinthaka-balasooriya-scientia-academy-lecture-september-2017

My Grants

Balasooriya, C., Harrison, R., Rawstorne, P., Meyer, L., Razee, H. (2017-2018). Designing, piloting and evaluating a process for formative peer-review of teaching ($45,000). UNSW Scientia Education Investment Fund
Velan, G., Steel, A., Lim, B., Sherry, C., Thomson, C., Balasooriya, C., . . . McIntyre, S. (2017-2018). Development and implementation of an education portfolio to evaluate excellence of teachers at UNSW ($50,000): UNSW Scientia Education Investment Fund.
Torda, A., Damodaran, A., Balasooriya, C., Fenton-Kerr, T., Mobbs, S., & O'Sullivan, P. A. (2018). The CLASSIE project – Clinically applicable student studies in Ethics, for Phase 3 medical students ($ 43,455): UNSW Scientia Education Investment Fund.
Balasooriya, C., MacIntyre, R., Travaglia, J. (2015-2016). Adapting and trialling an innovative international approach to address burnout in medical students. University of New South Wales/SJTU-UNSW Collaborative Research Fund - Seed Grant
Balasooriya, C., Canalese, R., Shulruf, B., Zwar, N. (2014). Enhancing the use of Hypertension Guidelines in General Practice ($75,000). National Heart Foundation of Australia – Vanguard Grant (Category 1 - ACGR)
Balasooriya, C., Olupeliyawa, A., O’Sullivan, A., Hughes, C., Rhee, J. Development of a mobile application to facilitate learning and assessment of teamwork skills in clinical settings. ($65,000). UNSW 2014 Allocation of Recurrent HWA Funding
Balasooriya, C., (2012). Clinical decision making in health care settings ($5000). SPHCM Small Grant to Support the development of Category 1 Grant application
Rutherford, A., Thompson, R., Balasooriya, C. (2010/2011). Enhancing the content, delivery and assessment of Graduate Capability 2 in the MBBS program ($6000): University of New South Wales Strategic Learning & Teaching Development Fund.
Balasooriya, C., Taylor, S., & Koritschoner, E. (2010/2011). Assessment and development of Teamwork across all Phases of UNSW Medicine Program ($10,000): University of New South Wales Strategic Learning & Teaching Development Fund.
Balasooriya, C D., Hughes, C. (2009). Assessing teamwork in undergraduate medical education to better prepare students for teamwork requirements of interns($4000): UNSW Seed Funding for ALTC Learning & Teaching Grant Applications.
Harris, P., Bloomfield, L., Hughes, C., Balasooriya, C., Meyer, L. (2007). Evaluation of assessment methods and training related to curricula for postgraduate training in diagnostic radiology and radiation oncology. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists.

My Qualifications

MBBS

PhD

My Awards

1. Australian Learning & Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning 2011

2. UNSW Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence 2012

3. Award for Teaching Excellence 2008 - UNSW Medicine

4. Award for all round achievement in Teaching and Research 2013 – SPHCM, UNSW

5. Award for excellence in postgraduate supervision 2015 – UNSW Postgraduate ARC

My Research Activities

My research program has led to 57 publications and I have contributed as lead author or senior author to 47 of these outputs.

Peer-reviewed Journal publications: I have authored 26 peer-reviewed publications that include publications in the top-ranked journals in medical education (Academic Medicine and Medical Education), a top ranked (ERA A*) higher education journal (Studies in Higher Education) and highly regarded journals such as BMC Medical Education, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Higher Education Research and Development.

Book Chapters: I have authored/co-authored four book chapters

Peer-reviewed conference proceedings: I have collaborated on 22 conference papers and posters

Peer reviewed educational publications: I have published an innovative teamwork project that I developed, on the peer-reviewed platform of the AAMC – MedEdPortal

Other publications: An invited commentary for Medical Education and two letters to Medical Teacher have been published. These are top ranking journals in medical education.

Reviewer roles for peer-reviewed journals: British Journal of Educational Psychology, Focus on Health Professions Education, BMC Medical Education, BMC Research Notes, Studies in Higher Education

Educational Grants: I have received 11 educational grants including a Category 1 research grant from the Heart Foundation of Australia. My total educational grant income is $547,000.

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

medical education

learning

curriculum design

Areas of supervision

1. Developing collaborative learning skills in medical students

2. Developing clinical reasoning skills in medical students

3. Curricular development and evaluation

4. Students' approaches to learning

Currently supervising

1. Primary supervisor: PhD in Medical Education – Asela Olupeliyawa (Identification of collaborative competencies for internship and the development of an assessment strategy that facilitates learning – completed 2012 - Outstanding student performance as evidenced by the ANZAHPE PG Award (National Level), UNSW Medicine Innovation Award, Four peer reviewed Publications including two in top tier MedEd journals, Six conference publications

2. Primary supervisor: PhD in Medical Education – Dr Maha Iqbal (Design and evaluation of an educational instrument to promote collaborative learning competencies)

3. Primary supervisor: PhD in Medical Education – A/Prof Shahid Shamim (Development and evaluation of an Innovative learning strategy for Ethics in Medical Education)

4. Joint-primary supervisor: Professional Doctorate - Michael Wang (Prevention of burnout in postgraduate medical students)

5. Primary Supervisor: PhD in Medical Education - Farhan Vakani (Developing a Continuing Medical Education Program for Pakistan)

6. Co-supervisor: MD in Medical Education, PGIM, Sri Lanka – Dr Sisira Dharmaratne (Developing and evaluating a vignette-based educational module to improve clinical decision making of medical officers in rural primary care settings)