Frailty in transition? Troubling the norms, boundaries and limitations of transition theory and practice

Keywords

Student transition; higher education; pedagogic frailty; concept mapping

Abstract

This article focuses on ‘transition’ and how it is understood within higher education. Drawing

on data from concept map-mediated interviews at two institutions, we examine the

conceptions of transition held by academic and professional staff, who work to support

students’ learning into and through higher education. We suggest that normative

understandings of transition often draw upon a grand-narrative that orchestrates and reiterates

a stereotypic understanding of students’ experiences. Often this narrative involves students’

interpellation into a field of discourse where the subject is constructed as both homogeneous

and in deficit: ill-prepared, lacking in independence, as vulnerable and in need of support.

However, this study suggests that beneath this discourse lies a more nuanced picture: one

where students’ experiences can be conceptualised as diverse and fluid. Moreover, we

employ the concept of pedagogic ‘frailty’ to expose the significance of the environments and

wider contexts in which students ‘transition’, and to explore the impact of systemic tensions

upon students’ experiences. This article further argues that future research should shift

discussions away from the deficits of students, and examine how we can make underlying

environmental and systemic challenges more explicit, in order to widen our understanding

and discussions of these constraints.

Introduction

This study examines the narratives and conceptions that underpin students’ transitions into

and through higher education. This area of theory and practice has developed huge global

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significance in recent years as institutions seek to widen access to higher education, to

promote retention and to foster a positive ‘student experience’, and a plethora of initiatives

have emerged to support and manage students’ transitions. However, despite the significance

of transition in informing policy, research, and practice, it remains largely under-theorised,

and underpinned by unquestioned and normative assumptions regarding what transition might

mean. Moreover, these unquestioned assumptions often reproduce, reiterate, and sustain a

paradigmatic grand-narrative of transition where the subject is constructed as in deficit: ill-

prepared, lacking in criticality and independence, and in need of support to manage this risky

experience.

In this study we use concept map-mediated interviews with academic and professional staff

in order to surface and to unravel staff conceptions of learning, unlearning and transition and

we seek to unsettle established and normative conceptions of transition to higher education.

We ask participants to consider what knowledge, skills and practices they perceive students

must let go of, or develop, in order to transition into and through university. Our data suggest

that staff draw heavily upon such traditional paradigmatic narratives of transition to inform

their discussions. However, a closer examination suggests that, as staff reflect further, a

stereotypic discourse is disrupted, as staff begin to reflect upon the irregularities and the

multiplicities of students’ experiences. Furthermore, staff reflections evince systemic and

environmental challenges that are fundamental to the debate around student transitions, and

that provoke a move away from the focus on individuals’ qualities, deficits and

vulnerabilities, towards an examination of the tensions, or ‘frailty’, at the heart of institutional

cultures and structures.

A grand-narrative of transition in research, policy and practice

In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard (1984) introduces the idea of

a grand narrative: a pervasive, embedded, cultural narrative which organises and totalises

knowledge and experience. The literature surrounding transition can be seen to reiterate a

grand-narrative that relies on a number of distinct themes. One pervasive theme that can be

identified within this narrative is transition as risk. ‘Transition’ is often depicted as a

problematic phase that must be ‘smoothed’, ‘bridged’, and made ‘successful’, with the help

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of staff and institutional initiatives. Settling quickly and smoothly is the ideal: for example,

Murtagh (2012, p. 31) identifies that ‘preparation for university and good induction practices

can help students to settle quickly and more effectively’. And similarly, Hultberg et al. write

that: ‘students have to become more focused and more goal-oriented…to make the transition

process as smooth as possible it is important to deal with these issues’ (2008, p. 49). Indeed,

making the transition process ‘as smooth as possible’ is often considered an uncontested goal

of institutions.

Often intertwined with this notion of risk is a theme within the narrative that identifies

students as in deficit. As we have seen, students are required to be more ‘focused’ and ‘goal-

orientated’, and are often depicted as poorly prepared for university life (Lowe and Cook,

2003; Murtagh 2012) and as needing additional support to adapt to their new environment

(Hughes and Smail, 2015). A trope that neatly symbolises this construct is of a ‘gap’ to be

‘bridged’, (for example Lowe & Cook, 2003; Briggs, Clark & Hall 2012; Tate & Swords,

2013). This deficit narrative also often evolves around supporting ‘aspirational’, or ‘non-

traditional’ students. For example: ‘Students today…come from different social and cultural

backgrounds, and have had different experiences of education. This puts new demands on the

transition process’ (Hultberg et al. 2008, p. 47). Similarly, learners from disadvantaged

backgrounds are described as lacking ‘sufficient cultural capital to make an easy intellectual

transition from school pupil to university student’ (Macfarlane, 2018, p. 1201). Personal

resilience is also a recurring theme within this discourse (Webster & Rivers, p. 2018):

students are depicted as requiring to develop the resilience and adaptability to help them to

navigate transition (e.g. Pope, Roper & Qualter, 2011; Holliman, Martin & Collie, 2018).

Certainly, these perspectives reflect the reality for some students, and also reflect the good

intentions of practitioners looking to foster students’ development, widen participation, and

promote an inclusive, supportive higher education environment. Nonetheless, such narratives

suggest a personal deficit in students who find transition difficult and who must adapt in

order to navigate institutional norms, practices and expectations.

The discourses surrounding transition also depict homogeneous, linear, journeys that students

undertake, and that involve discrete stages (induction; the ‘first year experience’). As a result,

much of the thinking which informs current practice can be considered as falling within a

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normative and unquestioned paradigm of transition which we argue may not fully

acknowledge the complexity, and multiplicity, of students’ lived realities. Despite the

pervasiveness of this perspective, there are, however, a number of notable exceptions to this

narrative. Quinn (2010) contests normative conceptions of success and failure and also linear

depictions of transition. She proposes a radical rethinking of the concept, suggesting: ‘we are

always lost in transition, not just in the sense of moving from one task or context to another,

but as a condition of our subjectivity’ (2010, p. 123). Similarly, Gale and Parker (2014, p.

734) argue that ‘research in the field needs to foreground students’ lived realities and to

broaden its theoretical and empirical base if students’ capabilities to navigate change are to be

fully understood and resourced’. And in their thought-provoking study that employs the

philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, and in particular concepts of rhizome, assemblage and

becoming to re-theorise transition, Taylor and Harris-Evans advocate ‘doing transition anew’

(2018, p. 1264) and refocusing attention on the lived specificities of students’ experiences (p.

1254). Likewise, Ecclestone asks us to question whether a ‘pedagogy of the self erodes

educational goals and practices in favour of being supported and managed through a

seamless, endless set of comfortable transitions’ (2007, p. 12). Our article thus seeks to build

on this growing shift towards ‘doing transition anew’, to explore both the complexity of

students’ experiences, and to look more closely at the environments within which that

learning takes place.

A fish out of water or polluted river?

In his work on educational transitions within schools Downes (2019, pp. 3-4) opines that:

Transition tends to focus on the child as foreground object, with some limited focus on transition issues pertaining to the school system…Put simply, transition concerns tend to treat the child as a fish out of water…rather than placing greater scrutiny on whether the background river is polluted…These background structural conditions are the primary issue, that becomes displaced into a pseudoquestion here of transition.

Here, Downes highlights the importance of attending to the wider context of the school

system and approaches to transition have become misguided: a ‘pseudoquestion’. Drawing on

staff conceptions of students’ transitions, this article also seeks to explore further those

background systemic and structural issues that impact upon students’ transitions within

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higher education, and that may have been subsumed by the widespread attention on the

individual student’s deficit and subsequent growth: ‘a pedagogy of the self’ (Ecclestone,

2007, p. 12). In order to do so we put to work a theoretical approach for understanding

university environments that has sought to understand the challenges that underpin teaching

and learning by focusing more closely on the structures and environments where teaching and

learning occurs. Kinchin and Winstone (2017, p. 6) argue that when institutional

environments experience a lack of explicit and shared values that contribute to an effective

regulative discourse (as described by Bernstein 2000), a disconnection between the practices

of the discipline with the pedagogy that underpins the discipline, or tensions between the

academic and decision-making bodies (locus of control) that regulate teaching, pedagogic

‘frailty’ may occur. The pedagogic frailty model considers how elements of a changing

higher education environment interact with one another, and the overarching concept of

pedagogic frailty is ‘built up of elements that often arise from stress that accompanies change

within the higher education environment’ (Kinchin & Winstone, 2017, p. 5). Frailty is a

‘condition of a system rather than of an individual within the system’ and thus ‘we need to

consider the landscape of the institution’ (Kinchin & Winstone, 2018, p. 6). This conception

of the ‘frailty’ of systems, or environments, is in marked contrast to the depiction of the

vulnerable individual. This article thus engages with both this framework and the work of

Downes to refocus attention to the wider landscape of students’ ‘transition’ experiences.

Unlearning, learning and transition

As part of this study we were also interested to explore how we might begin to conceptualise

how students both learn and unlearn in order to understand their development more fully. A

concept of unlearning can be seen to imbue the work of a number of key theorists. Land,

Rattray and Vivian highlight that there will be an inevitable period of unlearning for students

as they transition into and through higher education and acquire new ideas (2014, p. 212).

Similarly Turner and Tobell comment that ‘transition is a time of reconstruction, where the

learner negotiates which aspects of their previous learner identity to maintain and which

require transformation’ (2017, p. 714). Baxter-Magolda’s (1992, p. 73) exploration of

students’ knowing and reasoning depicts students as leaving behind a phase of ‘absolute

knowing’ and moving towards transitional and contextual understanding. Similarly, Piaget (p.

1953) discusses how the contradiction of ways of knowing allows us to adjust to account for

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new experiences through a process of ‘accommodation’. And in Spivak’s postcolonialist

writings, she asks what is it to learn, what is it to unlearn? (1992, p. 776). However, this term

has not been examined in detail within the transition literature. Thus both learning and

developing, as well as unlearning and letting go of previous skills, knowledge and

experiences, formed part of our interview question within the map-mediated interviews as we

sought to examine this idea further.

The research project

Context and participants

We were also keen to include a multiplicity of perspectives from across institutions. As a

result we chose to include participants from both academic and professional services

backgrounds that included academic staff, librarians and learning developers. It has been

noted that the views of professional staff, for example librarians and learning development

advisors, have been underrepresented within the educational research literature, despite these

staff members working to support students’ learning (Gravett & Winstone, 2018; Salisbury &

Peseta, 2018). Indeed, these staff have been described as working within an educational ‘third

space’ (for example, see Whitchurch, 2008) and have been shown to have an important

insight into students’ experiences within higher education (Gravett & Winstone, 2018). We

hoped that by including a range of voices we would be able to gain a more nuanced

understanding of the landscape of an institution in which students’ learning takes place. We

also wished to harness a diversity of perspectives by exploring the views of staff working in

contrasting institutions and thus we chose to conduct the research across two universities:

Universities A and B. We were interested to know what knowledge and skills staff perceive

students must let go of in order to transition into and through university, how staff

conceptualise students’ transitions and development, and how this might relate to pedagogic

frailty within institutions.

The research took place in two research-intensive UK higher education institutions. One

institution (institution B) has a diverse profile including a high intake of Black and Minority

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Ethnic (BAME) students, a high intake of students from state schools, and a higher than

average intake of students who are the first in their family to go into higher education. This is

unusual for a research-intensive university and would, we felt, make for an interesting

comparison to our other institution (institution A) whose student intake is more reflective of a

traditional research-led institution in lacking such a diverse profile of undergraduate students.

The research involved concept map-mediated interviewing of seven members of staff, by the

first author. The sample consisted of two males and five females. Participants were recruited

via email. They were selected according to their job roles, in order to include participants

who worked closely with students and to include participants from across disciplines and

academic and professional backgrounds. The members of staff included three academics and

four professional learning support staff members including librarians and learning

developers. Academic staff participants worked in a disciplines including Health Sciences,

Biomedical Sciences and Mechanical Engineering. All participants were asked prior to

coming to the interview to think generally about their experience of, and views on, students

transitions into and through higher education.

The concept map-mediated interviews

Concept map-mediated interviews (Kandiko & Kinchin, 2013) aim to enable participants to

reflect upon a question in order to surface beliefs and values. The concept map functions as a

dialogic learning tool to externalize participants’ personal understandings and perspectives

(Kandiko, Hay, & Weller, 2013). Concept map-mediated interviewing is unstructured and

may include a single question that can be followed by further prompts. In this study, the

interviewer began by asking the interviewee: ‘from your perspective what knowledge, skills

and practices do you perceive students must let go of, or develop, in order to transition into

and through university?’ The interviewer then wrote down concepts mentioned during the

interview onto post-it notes, employing follow up questions as required. After the participants

had shared their perspectives, the interviewer recounted the interview back to the participant

based on the post-it notes to see if they were in agreement with what had been noted so far.

Once the interviewee had provided 12 – 15 concept labels, the interviewer then asked the

interviewee about the relationships between concepts and invited the interviewee to organise

them on a piece of A3 paper. The questioning that follows from this stage would include

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prompts such as: ‘Where should this concept go?’ ‘Should there be a link here?’ ‘Is that the

most appropriate word to describe this link’, in order to interrogate the intended meaning and

maximise the explanatory power of the links in the map (Heron et al., 2018). After the

interviews were finished, the interviewer electronically drew the concept map using the

drawing tools in Microsoft PowerPoint and sent this to the participants to review. The

interviewees then considered whether the concept map was a suitable reflection of the

interview experience, and edited or amended any concepts or links. Once the interviewee

returned the agreed electronic concept map, it provided the data for analysis (see appendices).

Ethical issues

Institutional ethical approval was granted for this study. All participants also provided

informed consent for their participation. It was made clear that participants could withdraw at

any time, that the interviews would not be recorded, and that the only artefact from the

interview would be the concept maps that are agreed by the interviewer and interviewee.

Additionally, our results were also externally validated via a member check with participants

to ensure that they were in agreement with the findings.

Data analysis

In order to store and organise the concept maps collected from the interview process we used

NVivo 12. We then coded the maps inductively within NVivo using thematic analysis (Braun

& Clarke, 2006) due to its flexibility in inductive approaches to data. We employed iterative

and inductive processes to identify themes across all the data. All authors first met together to

review the seven concept maps in detail in order to allow familiarisation with the data, and to

identify and agree an initial list of themes. A further iterative process then involved applying

the final set of themes to the entire dataset within NVivo, refining where appropriate. Codes

were associated to NVivo nodes and data across the data set organised systematically

according to the codes we generated. Recurrent themes were identified across the nodes,

grouped together and reviewed together. Themes were identified based on their prevalence

within the concept maps. Some of the questions which guided our analysis were: what are the

variety of ways in which participants describe students’ learning and unlearning? What

repertoire of understandings are the staff drawing on? What tensions (if any) are visible

within the maps? We also considered themes which initially surfaced within the interviews

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and themes that arose as the conversations became more complex (themes which tend to be

situated at the outskirts of the maps). Findings from the interviews are presented below.

Findings and discussion

Students in deficit

The primary aim of this study was to gain insight into how academic members of staff and

professional services staff, who work with students, conceptualise students’ learning,

unlearning and transitions into and through higher education. Our findings suggest that across

the interviews there exist many shared conceptions. One shared conception clearly references

a normative, deficit paradigm of transition reflecting what is visible in the literature, policy

and practice. For example, a recurrent theme discussed by participants across both institutions

is the notion of students’ lack of independence; this is expressed powerfully by the recurrent

trope of ‘spoon-feeding’ employed by many of the interviewees. For example, in Figure 3,

students are described as ‘ill-prepared’, as expecting ‘spoon feeding’, as used to ‘awaiting

instructions’ and as having ‘suppressed curiosity’. Similarly academic staff member 2 (Figure

2) describes students as needing to unlearn ‘spoon-feeding approaches’ and as needing to

‘develop independence’. Library staff member 6 (Figure 6) explains transitions can be

‘problematized when students expect to be spoon-fed’ and academic staff member 1

describes students as needing support in order to become used to ‘less signposting’. The

spoon feeding metaphor, so pervasive in contemporary debates surrounding students’

learning (e.g. Smith, 2008; Hanna et al., 2014), can be seen to reiterate a discourse where

individuals are portrayed as having a personal deficit, and are even depicted as infants.

‘Grey’ mindsets

A related theme present within the maps is students’ changing epistemology of knowledge.

For example, learning development staff member 4 (Figure 4) describes how students need to

let go of the view that the teacher is the ‘font of knowledge’, unlearning that knowledge is

‘compartmentalised’, developing a ‘changing mindset’, ‘criticality’, and an understanding of

‘shades of grey’. Academic staff member 2 (Figure 2) also discusses how students learn ‘to

identify gaps in their knowledge’ and develop ‘criticality’. Students are described as needing

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to let go of the belief that there is a single correct answer (Figures 1, 2, 4 and 5) and that

‘listening to the teacher ensures success’ (Figure 4). Academic staff member 3 describes how

students unlearn ‘fixed ideas’ and undertake a ‘learning journey’ (Figure 3) and similarly in

Figure 1, academic staff member 1 depicts students as needing to unlearn expectations for

example that ‘learning takes time’, and argues that students need to ‘form their own

knowledge’ base requiring ‘creativity’. Library staff member 6 believes that students must

understand the role of ‘independent research’ and develop ‘information literacy’ skills despite

preferring ‘simplicity’ (Figure 6). Library staff member 7 also discusses how students must

develop ‘information literacy skills’ and a ‘deeper understanding of plagiarism and

referencing’ (Figure 7). These views reflect the work of Gamache (2002, 277) who argues

that students must develop ‘an alternative epistemological view’, and that this is ‘one that

enables them to see themselves as creators of ‘personal knowledge’, rather than as containers

to be “filled”’. However again this narrative draws on a repertoire of understandings that

depict students as experiencing a personal deficit.

Changing student-staff relations

Another theme that can be discerned from the interviews relates to changing staff-student

relations. For example, library staff member 5 (Figure 5) states that students must change

their view of the ‘lecturer/teacher/learning developer as expert’ and that the ‘role of the

student’ becomes redefined, a view reinforced by learning development staff member 4

(Figure 4). Library staff member 5 explores how students’ roles are redefined so that students

‘actively contribute’. Academic staff member 2 (Figure 2) discusses the changing language

students at University B must adopt, as they must learn to move from the use of ‘teacher’ to

‘lecturer’ and ‘Miss’ to first names. Interestingly this issue of language was raised by a

participant working at institution B, and this lack of understanding of university cultural and

linguistic norms could perhaps be influenced by the increased number of students who were

first to attend university in their family attending this university. Again students must move

beyond the idea of ‘teacher as expert’, and as students develop more independent help-

seeking approaches staff-student relations are impacted (Figure 2). Students are described as

needing to recognise the value of support staff (Figure 6; Figure 7) something which may be

particularly difficult for students from international backgrounds (Figure 4). As a result,

many of these viewpoints can be seen to concur with a traditional paradigm of homogeneous

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and deficit transition experiences: foregrounding the individual student, her/his gaps in skills

or knowledge, and the need for her/him to adapt to a more challenging university

environment.

A tension between the system and our values

The maps also portray a more nuanced understanding of the environments and wider contexts

in which students ‘transition’. Many of the interviewees, across both institutions, consider the

impact of non-human agents, and identify systemic, financial and environmental tensions as

key contributory factors to transition difficulties. For example, library staff member 5

identifies the tension between traditional lecture theatres and buildings designed for

transmission approaches and the institution’s espoused values (Figure 5). Here this

participant articulates that this tension may cause real problems for students’ transitions as

they experience a disconnect between the visible symbols of pedagogy and the purported

values of independence and student-centred learning. A similar idea recurs in Figure 3 where

academic staff member 3’s map centres on a powerful and memorable statement: that there is

a ‘tension between the system and our values’. Here academic staff member 3 examines key

problems with curriculum design: namely the modular structures of degree programmes,

identifying that if learning is not transferred across modules then students’ growth may be

inhibited. This is also noted by academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) who describes the

‘constraints of a modular structure’.

The participants also reflected on challenges to transition caused by the impact of a neoliberal

higher education environment. Academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) openly states the

existence of ‘a customer mentality in tension with staff perspectives’ and describes the

university’s ‘idealised version of a student’ (which may be problematic). Academic staff

member 3 (Figure 3) identifies the problems when ‘academics feel the need to provide

information’ and when they know that students will ‘question failure / poor grades’. Library

staff member 5 (Figure 5) also indicates the impact of a neoliberal context: suggesting that

values of independence and criticality may conflict with a ‘results orientated culture’, and

with established notions surrounding ‘employability’ and the ‘route to achievement’. Other

wider systemic and environmental factors considered within the maps, include a culture of

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‘increasing student anxiety’ (Figure 4), which may ‘have multiple causes’, but which may

encourage ‘over-reliance on the teacher’ and ‘over-checking of work’. A growing trend of

commuter students was highlighted by staff at University B (Figure 2) and described as

potentially experiencing additional challenges transitioning into and through higher

education.

The participants offer a myriad of broader reasons for tensions and challenges within

students’ transitions including university facilities and buildings, curriculum design, and a

wider backdrop of neoliberalism, increased student anxiety and changing patterns of student

accommodation and lifestyle. This scrutiny of the wider context - that may operate in tension

with an institution’s underlying values - may indicate the occurrence of pedagogic frailty

within the system. Notably, by exposing the importance of the non-human: spaces, buildings,

curricula, the participants offer a critique to a humanist conception of education which has

been shown to underpin much educational thought, research and practice (Gourlay, 2015, p.

407), which places the ‘free-floating human at the centre’. Crucially, by redirecting our focus

to the wider landscape of students’ experiences, these perspectives offer a counterview to the

problematic nature of transitions being attributed to individual struggles, weaknesses or

deficits and instead raise questions about the tension between structural and cultural aspects

of higher education and our expectations of students within these contexts.

Disruptions and multiplicities

The interviews exposed interesting general contrasts between institutions. For example, at

University B, an institution which has a diverse profile of students, the impact of an increase

in commuter students upon transitions was noted. However, at University A an

acknowledgement of the particular needs of ‘traditional students’ was explored (Figure 5).

Further, the maps reflected a few notable general differences between individual participant

perspectives: for example it is not entirely surprising that the librarians commented

particularly on the role of research skills development and of the library, as a result no doubt

of their closer connection to these spaces and areas of work. In contrast, the staff members

focused on the problems of modularised curricula as curriculum design and assessment would

likely form more of a central aspect of their role.

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However, what is of greater interest is that the maps also disrupt overarching patterns and

perspectives by offering a number of alternative, divergent, conceptions. For example,

transitions are described as ‘ongoing’ by academic staff member 1 (Figure 1), as ‘not linear’

and as requiring the development of ‘an amorphous mass of knowledge’. This portrayal

differs markedly from notions of transition as linear journeys with discrete milestones (e.g.

the first year) and depicts learning and unlearning as messy, indeterminate, and unstructured.

Students are also articulated as ‘having different experiences’ during transitions (Figure 4).

While the data depicts recurrent negative constructions of students, crucially, here students’

strengths are celebrated: with some students ‘understanding university’, being ‘adept at

accessing support’, and being ‘very good at accepting difficulties and stress’ (Figure 4).

Academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) describes transitions as being ‘not the same for all

students’ and library staff member 6 (Figure 6) explains that transitions recur throughout the

degree, suggesting the notion that learning and unlearning is ongoing and fluid.

Some of the participants also deviate from a normative paradigm of heterogeneous

experiences, by their inclusion of discussions surrounding unusual differences between

particular groups of students. For example, library staff member 7 (Figure 7) describes

‘differences across cohorts’ as well as ‘disciplinary differences’. Furthermore, this librarian

particularly describes transitions as being more difficult for students who already have

degrees such as medics as these students may be over confident in their abilities, providing an

interesting, counterintuitive, perspective. Similarly, library staff member 5 (Figure 5)

explains her view that for students who do have traditional expectations of University on

arrival, transitions may be made difficult if these expectations of higher education are ‘old-

fashioned’ and if these students are then confronted with a busy and modern environment (for

example where the library is no longer quiet). This is an interesting viewpoint that deviates

entirely from the more frequent description of the advantages of cultural capital and

knowledge of the university sector that ‘traditional’ students bring with them as these

students enter higher education (e.g. Meuleman et al., 2015). Such divergences offer

interesting insight into the individuality and multiplicity of different students’ experiences

and deviate from paradigmatic descriptions of ‘typical’ student journeys.

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Conclusions

Conceptions drawing upon a repertoire of understandings that foreground students

deficiencies, and that present students as needing to adapt to university environments, can be

clearly discerned across the data and reflect the themes found in the literature. Indeed, we

have argued that within the literature, a pervasive narrative exists that widely influences

current understandings of students’ transition. This deficit discourse is problematic for a

number of reasons. Viewing transitions in this way is limiting for both staff and students, and

discourse has been shown to be powerful: for example, theorists such as Foucault (1991;

1998) and Butler (1993) have examined the role of language and discourse in the making an

unmaking of intelligible subjects, and in creating an epistemic reality. Both these theorists

have shown how interconnected is the relationship between language and subject formation:

language forms subjects and who or what is intelligible, and it is imbued with a power that

‘orchestrates delimits and sustains’ (Butler, 1993, p. xvii). Likewise Law and Urry (2004, p.

404) argue: ‘social science is in some measure involved in the creation of the real’.

Furthermore, a limiting conception of students’ experiences means that policy and practice

may not support students’ development effectively, as Law and Urry suggest: ‘if social

science is to interfere in the realities of that world, then it needs tools for understanding and

practising the complex and the elusive…and for ‘understanding non-linear relationships’

(ibid.).

However we have argued that in our study, the participants’ perspectives do deviate from this

narrative to consider more fluid and more complex notions of transition, learning and

unlearning. Students’ experiences are depicted as heterogeneous, unstructured and diverse.

Crucially, the participants also explore the ruptures, tensions, and non-human influences that

underpin students’ experiences within the wider systems and pedagogical landscapes of

institutions. These include a wide range of factors, for example institutional buildings and

study spaces, the problems of a modular curriculum, and a neoliberalist context. Tensions

within these landscapes can be viewed as a signifier of pedagogic frailty within the system, as

opposed to an individual vulnerability or deficit. Frailty may occur where an individual’s

views conflict with other views in the institution or where the values espoused within

institutions jostle uncomfortably with environmental or systemic constraints. Of course, there

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are some limitations to our study. Concept mapping is a collaborative interview process

where the concept map is co-constructed between interviewer and interviewee (Heron,

Kinchin and Medland, 2018) and this is a bias that needs to be acknowledged

openly. Additionally, our research is one snapshot and arguably small in empirical scope.

However, our research has produced data that is both conceptually and theoretically

generative. Moving forward, there is a need for further research to explore new ways of

theorising and doing transition and to continue to expand research which shifts discussions

away from the vulnerabilities and deficits of students. Rather, future work might consider

how we can remove stigma from descriptions of processes of unlearning and transformation

and also celebrate the value of what students bring. Crucially it may also be worthwhile

considering how institutions can offer students more guidance about learning approaches and

expectations within higher education. Further, it may wish to examine how we can accept the

multiplicity and singularity of transitions, and how we can make underlying environmental

and systemic challenges more explicit, in order to widen our understanding and discussions

of these constraints.

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Butler, J. (2011). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. London: Routledge.

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18

Appendices

Figure 1 Interview with academic staff member 1 at University A

19

EXPECTATIONS OF PREVIOUS INSTITUTIONS

STUDENTS’ TRANSITIONS

require students to unlearn

NOT LINEAR(AMORPHOUS MASS OF

KNOWLEDGE)LEARNING TAKES TIME

are

ONGOING

FORM THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE-BASE

LESS SIGNPOSTING

SUPPORT AT THE RIGHT TIMES

PERSONAL TUTOR SUPPORT

CREATIVITY

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES

MORE GUIDANCE ABOUT LEARNING APPROACHES

AND EXPECTATIONS

and require

to explore further and to

need students to understand that

CUSTOMER MENTALITY IN TENSION WITH STAFF

PERSPECTIVE

can expose a

includingto become

used to

IDEALISED VERSION OF A STUDENT

SIZE OF COHORTNO SINGLE RIGHT ANSWER

CONSTRAINTS OF A MODULAR

STRUCTURE

NOT THE SAME FOR ALL STUDENTS

to get used to a larger

involve an

and that there is

are

moving beyond

made difficult by

problematised by

fosteringwith

although this is

not for all

including that

could be helped by

supported by

developedby

could be assisted with

although this can be complex within

and will be supported

with

and

Figure 2 Interview with academic staff member 2 at University B

20

INDEPENDENCE

STUDENTS’ TRANSITIONS

require students to develop

SPOON-FEEDING APPROACHES

LANGUAGE: e.g. TEACHER TO

LECTURER,’MISS’ TO STAFF NAMES

require unlearning

of

ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS

HELP-SEEKING APPROACHES

LIFE EXPERIENCE / A GAP YEAR

STAFF-STUDENT RELATIONS

CRITICALITY

TEACHER AS EXPERT

IDENTIFY GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE

TIME-MANAGEMENT

ROTE / SURFACE LEARNING

CLEAR / SINGLE ANSWERS

and appropriate

requires

developing

can be more challenging for

knowing how to leads to more

appropriate

made difficult without

improved by the maturity

of

no longer

just

COMMUTER STUDENTS

reflected in

require

THROUGHOUT H.E. e.g. THIRD YEAR

can be more challenging

being self-directed to

can be fostered by

which exacerbates

moving beyond

expecting

no longer viewing

altering

challenged by a lack of

which impacts upon

andand

moving beyond the idea of

Figure 3 Interview with academic staff member 3 at University A

21

STUDENTS MAY BE

ILL-PREPARED

DEPENDENCY

LEARNING JOURNEY

CURIOSITYINCREASED

FEEDBACK AT COLLEGE

LEVEL

STUDENTS’ SUCCESSFUL TRANSITIONS

VALUES CHANGE AND

GROW

FIXED IDEAS

STUDENTS ARE TECH SAVVY

AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS ‘SPOON-

FEEDING’

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

requires students

to unlearn

require students to undertake a

and may expect

are made difficult as

butwhere they may

be used to

and do not recognise

and have suppressed

their

as they may be used to

TENSION BETWEEN SYSTEM AND

VALUES

SELF-MANAGEMENTEMBRACE

FAILURE

EXPECT TO ACHIEVE

EXCELLENCE EASILY

requires students

to no longer

and

require

and students unlearn

PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS

SURREY LEARN

IMMEDIATE INFORMATION

STUDENTS WHO EXPECT TO BE

TAUGHT TO THE TEST

LEARNING IS NOT TRANSFERRED

ACROSS MODULESMODULAR

CURRICULUM

SKILL REQUIRED FOR PRACTICE

ACADEMICS FEEL THE NEED TO

PROVIDEINFORMATION

STUDENTS QUESTION FAILURE

/ POOR GRADES

and to

although this is a

key

UNIVERSITY IS HARD WORK

although there is a

as they may be used to

which may lead to

where

but

where students

develop their

promoting

and may be used to

where growth is inhibited by

a

andwhere growth is inhibited by

leading them to expect

in whichfostering

although

they may be reluctant to use

means that

Figure 4 Interview with Learning Development staff member 4 at University A

22

ACCEPTING DIFFICULTIES

/STRESS

ACADEMIC PRACTICES e.g. REFERENCING

MULTIPLE CAUSES

STUDENT TRANSITIONS

EXPERIENCING CHALLENGES OR

FAILURE IN TERMS OF GRADES

ASSESSMENT FOCUSED

ACCESS COURSES

are diverse may require unlearning of

CHANGING MINDSET/CRITICALITY

‘SHADES OF GREY’

OVER-CHECKING OF WORK

LISTENING TO THE TEACHER ENSURES

SUCCESS

INCREASING STUDENT ANXIETY

KNOWLEDGE IS COMPARTMENTALISED

and develops

OVER-RELIANCE ON THE TEACHER

moving beyond being

STUDENTS FROM INTERNATIONALBACKGROUNDS

TEACHER AS FONT OF

KNOWLEDGE

ONE CORRECT ANSWER

STUDENTS HAVE DIFFERENT

EXPERIENCES

ADEPT AT ACCESSING SUPPORT

SOME STUDENTS

UNDERSTAND UNIVERSITY

particularly for students

on

involve letting go of the idea that there

is

and

and

leading to a better

understanding of

require unlearning that

and

and students can be very good at

students can be

and

unlearning the belief that

require unlearning that

may be influenced by

which may encourage

this may particularly be true

for unlearning the belief that

this may lead to

which may have moving

beyond

and

and

promotes

meaning that leads to

and

requires

requires

23

Figure 5 Interview with Librarian 5 at University A

THE ROLE OF A STUDENT

STUDENT TRANSITIONS

DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES CULTURAL

ATTITUDES

ALWAYS A RIGHT ANSWER

TEACHERS ARE OFTEN NOT ABLE TO

GIVE DEFINITIVE ANSWERS

TRADITIONAL BUILDINGS /

LECTURE THEATRES

OLD-FASHIONED EXPECTATIONS

OF HE

HARDER FOR ‘TRADITIONAL’

STUDENTS WHO MAY HAVE ‘TRADITIONAL’

EXPECTATIONS

‘unlearn’ that there is

LECTURER/ TEACHER / LEARNING

DEVELOPER AS EXPERT

require a change in

and the redefining of the

STUDENTS ACTIVELY

CONTRIBUTE

ROUTE TO ACHIEVEMENT

RESULTS ORIENTATED

CULTURE

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS

CAN GO WRONG

SCHOOL / COLLEGE EXPECTATIONS

EMPLOYABILITY

THE LIBRARY IS QUIET

ENVIRONMENT MAY BE IN

TENSION WITH VALUES

and that

changing their view

of the

as a result

of

changes are problematized

when

not the same experience for

all students and also there are

may be problematized when students experience a disconnect

between

may be perpetuated by

meaning that it may be

such as

and the development of

where

which impacts

on

unlearning their view

of the

rethinking what is

although skills development

which may come from

which may conflict with a

and actively develop

problematisedby a

which may have been

developed by

meaning that successful transitions

meaning that

Figure 6 Interview with Librarian 6 at University B

24

RECOGNISE THE VALUE OF SUPPORT

STAFF

STUDENT TRANSITIONS

UNHELPFUL INFORMATION

SEARCHING HABITSINDEPENDENT

RESEARCHSPOON-FED’

INFORMATION LITERACY MAY NOT

BE TAUGHT AT SCHOOL/COLLEGE

NOTICEABLE DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES

STUDENTS PREFER

SIMPLICITY

can be problematized when students expect to be

require an understanding of the

role of

JUST USE LECTURE

NOTES

LIBRARY AS JUST A STUDY SPACE

READING IS PRE-PROVIDED

PRO-ACTIVE OUTREACH INIITIATIVES

THROUGHOUT DEGREE

LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

ARE UNDERUSED

difficultif students expect to

be

problematisedwhen

require students to ‘unlearn’

involve

and because

made more difficult when students and

staff fail to

problematisedwhen

this may be

becausealthough this may be

because some lecturers are happy for the students to

requiring staff to be

and students and staff to

can lead students to view the

may mean that students view the

and the unlearning of the

ensuring others

encouraging others to think beyond the

recur

25

Figure 7 Interview with Librarian 7 at University B

DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF

PLAGIARISM AND REFERENCING

STUDENT TRANSITIONS

STUDENTS CAN BE OVER

CONFIDENTINFORMATON

LITERACY SKILLSINFORMATION IS

EASILY ACCESSIBLE VIA

GOOGLE

A PROFESSIONAL WITHIN THEIR

DISCIPLINE

DIFFERENCES ACROSS COHORTS

VALUE OF STAFF SUPPORT

USE TECHNOLOGY APPROPRIATELY AND

PROFESSIONALLY

require students to develop

and a

DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES

STUDENTS MAY BE DISENGAGED WITH TEACHING

leading to

can be problematized

when

may be problematized when students

do not recognise the

and may not recognise

the

meaning that

students learn to

be

involve learning how to

may mean reluctance to

develop

‘unlearn’ that

which contributes to students

knowing how to

how to

development is difficult

when

STUDENTS WHO ALREADY HAVE DEGREES e.g.

MEDICS

for example

meaning that

although there are

noticeable

and

that impact upon

whether

that influence whether

26