Lost but looking for the trail: The student experience, resources, and choice

Jennie Blake, Research Associate

University of Manchester

Patricia Clift Martin

University of Manchester

Professor Val Wass (Principal Investigator)

University of Keele

HEARing Student Voices: developing the pedagogy to reflect achievements across the student experience

This project has been funded by the 2009 NTFS Projects Funding strand

Project Outline

Stage one:

Pilot focus group (~10 students, mixed disciplines, PASS leaders)

Main focus groups in three contrasting disciplines: English and American Studies, Pharmacy, and Geography (~ 10 students per discipline)

Transcription and analysis

Stage two:

Mixed discipline focus groups

Individual Interviews

Transcription and analysis

Staff focus group/consultation

Theoretical framework

The Participants

Pure Discipline

Mixed Discipline1

Mixed Discipline2

Interview Student Totals

Staff Discipline Total

English 4 3 3* 5 15* 7 22

Pharmacy 10 2 4 3 19 12 31

Geography 8 2 2 3 15 6 21

22 7 9 11 49 25 74

NO MAP AND A BROKEN COMPASS

“No one’s ever said, ‘Look, here’s the underlying structure of what we want to give you, this is why we’re doing all of this...’ That’s never

happened.” (efg1)

First Place to Look: Personal Experience vs. University

Resources

Students tend to use non-University resources first and most frequently

“Google!” (Sphai)

You have to rely on friends that you’ve made. (Efg1)

Difficulty deciding which resources are most trustworthy/useful

Other than [friends], I think I’d be struggling, really, to work out what’s good and what’s not. (Reengi)

“My [second year academic advisor]…he didn’t know anything about me..so it was just a waste of time” (Mixed focus group, Geography, ln 153)

The unanswerable question:

No. This is what we get in our seminars, ‘Is everyone okay with the essays then?’...Because we have to be, don’t we? What else are we going to say? (efg1)

Add a sub title or delete this boxResults Outline

Although students rarely report much forward planning with choices, it became clear as the study progressed that much of their energy was directed away from making informed choices by the nature and set up of the resources available to them. Thus, it was not so much that they were choosing to make ad-hoc or ill-informed choices but that they were left with no other option.

Thinking of the choices and resources within the fixed (entity) or growth (incremental) theories of intelligence and mindset (see Dweck, 2006), it becomes clear that the set-up and placement of resources, both practical and pedagogical, can have a significant impact on whether a student ends up within a fixed or growth mindset and thus whether that student moves forward with the information provided.