In search of the feeling of ‘belonging’ in higher education: undergraduate students transition into higher education

ABSTRACT

Previous research that evaluated first year students’ transition into university found that the values of ‘being, belonging and becoming’ were important in particular within the first few months and within the first year of university. From our previous work, we reported that three things matter to students: the academic staff they work with, the nature of their academic study and the feeling of belonging. This paper provides a further illumination to our work by reporting on the qualitative data collected in the same study. The study included 530 students from five cohorts over a five-year period. As part of the Student Experience Evaluation instrument, open-ended questions probed students about their early experiences of belonging and transition into university. This original research uses rich data to illuminate the scales and items from previous quantitative data analysis to explore ‘belonging’, triangulated with research from the field. This paper is timely due to increased emphasis placed on learning and teaching with the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework. Student satisfaction is not a simplistic measure and this study articulates the complexity of student belonging in Higher Education.     

Inside the ‘body box’: exploring feedback in higher education

In recent years, educational research has paid special attention to teachers’ practical-operative experience. The growing interest in the concept of practice within workplace settings has become a turning point in sociological, anthropological and educational studies. The present study aims to explore lecturers’ perceptions and conceptions of feedback and their daily professional practice, with a focus on the use of body movement while providing feedback during the class. Even though educational research has paid a lot of attention to the concepts of practice and performance, there are very few studies that consider the main actor included in the definition of those concepts: the body. Methodologically this exploratory case study uses a mixed methods approach. Results identified two types of issues: the first one concerns the relation between lecturer and students during the feedback practice; the second one concerns the internal coherence of lecturers between the kind of verbal feedback they provide during the lesson and how at the same time they act bodily.     

Is students’ qualitative feedback changing,now it is online?

Student feedback can be used to enable institutions to achieve the best possible outcomes for students through informing changes which enhance the quality of teaching and learning. Following the introduction of an online survey platform to gather student feedback at a top-performing UK university, anecdotal concerns raised by academics suggested students were being more critical. This exploratory study investigated the effects of switching from a paper to an online survey by comparing the open-ended responses between the two methods of collection. The main contribution of this study is the development of an analytical framework which can be used by other institutions to evaluate student comments, in order to understand and improve the student experience. Three key findings in this study were uncovered. Firstly, the quality of student feedback is not undermined by a switch to a more efficient online collection. Secondly, student comments via both methods of collection predominantly continue to focus on fulfilling basic needs, such as study resources. Finally, a small number of comments online revealed a lack of behavioural constraint and were considered to be inappropriate. These findings have important policy implications for the global higher education sector, highlighting the need for students to be given guidance on providing constructive feedback.     

The effectiveness of early identification of ‘at risk’ students in higher education institutions

The application of formative assessment principles in higher education has become increasingly important in South Africa. In this case study the researcher assesses the effectiveness of the application of an early warning system to the higher-education environment in a high failure rate subject. This method is applied according to recommended feedback guidelines for formative assessment and self-regulated learning. Over the period of three years the collected data indicates that the subject affected the outcomes of the students significantly. Students who were at the highest risk of failure benefited the most from the application of an early warning system and corresponding tutorial classes to the subject, which is in line with other formative assessment findings. The students participating in the ‘at risk’ list achieved a summative grade on average 8% higher than the class average grade without the implementation of the early warning system and accompanying tutorial classes.     

The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education

Abstract

This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically related) moves. First, we identify a range of market exchanges that have emerged in the context of wider ideological and political changes in the governance of higher education to make it a more globally competitive producer of knowledge, and a services sector. Second, we explore the ways in which making markets involve a considerable amount of microwork, such as the deployment of a range of framings, and socio-technical tools. Taken together, these market-making processes are recalibrating and remaking the structures, social relations and subjectivities, within and beyond the university and in turn reconstituting the university and the higher education sector.     

The changing status of higher education in the ‘moronic inferno’

Getting a good and relevant education is difficult enough to achieve within a context where social and economic needs are constantly unsettled by political policy. The public funding of the education sector has become a contested arena irrespective of a government’s ideology. Recent graduates from various disciplines from Town Planning to Philosophy report in university destination surveys that they have only found employment in areas unrelated to their academic training – for instance, in supermarkets, restaurants and other low-level service industries. How has it happened that the universalisation of mass higher education has contributed to a disconnect between the individual’s social aspirations and their economic status? What happened to the tacit promise that an extended period of intellectual development would prepare the individual for a life of valuable social contribution and financial security? Part of the answer lies in the success of higher education itself. Its popularity has changed its transformative capacity and allowed operational efficiencies to overrule academic quality. The university, ideally seen as a repository of intellectual intuition, has been remade into yet another modern corporation concerned with the bottom line and financial security. Why has it been necessary to remake the university in the image of the department store, supermarket or bank, and how has it been achieved without more critique?     

‘Here I come again’: the cost of success for higher education students diagnosed with autism

This qualitative study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to consult with 16 autistic UK higher education (HE) students about their experiences of success. An in-depth participatory approach encouraged participants to become co-analysts of their data.

Participants offered counter-narratives to deficit-based interpretations of autism, giving accounts of making themselves ‘extra-visible’ as autistic in order to assert their rights. The autism diagnosis was perceived both as an aid to self-understanding and a cause of additional barriers. In raising awareness of their own needs, participants contributed to broader understandings of autism within their academic communities, inadvertently becoming educators and role models. The research highlights the extra effort required by autistic students to thrive within higher education and the barriers imposed by current requirements to both pursue formal diagnosis, and to disclose it in order to receive adjustments. The research was novel in its approach and in its focus on success, revealing original findings in relation to the challenges and barriers faced by high-achieving autistic students, and the implications for a more inclusive higher education curriculum and environment are considered.     

‘Selective cosmopolitans’: tutors’ and students’ experience of offshore higher education in Dubai

As the offshore mobility of higher education has increased in recent times, the question of how it interacts with the recipient cultures has become ever more significant. Using ethnographic methods, this empirical study examined the adaptation of the UK teacher education model – the Postgraduate Certificate in Education – to the context of Dubai. The study asks ‘how do students and tutors experience the adaptation of British education in the context of Dubai?’ This paper will argue that tutors and students in offshore Dubai teacher education are ‘selective cosmopolitans’ who negotiate cross-cultural influences pragmatically and ambivalently. The study addresses a significant gap in the literature, as there is little written on the internationalisation of higher education in the context of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. There is also an inadequate appreciation of the role of local culture and religion in offshore education and tutors and students’ role as active agents in negotiating cross-cultural dynamics in the offshore educational setting.     

The recontextualisation of ‘quality’ in Australian higher education

In the education policy arena, the notion of ‘quality'as a mechanism for increasing accountability to stakeholders has risen to prominence in the 1990s, as part of the micro‐economic reform agenda of many national governments. This study analyses the way in which policy makers in Australian higher education have recontextualised the notions of quality adopted in other countries to reconstruct a uniquely Australian version. Further, the study analyses how this recontextualisation continues from the ministerial level, through the Higher Education Council (HEC), and then the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE), to the site of intended policy effect ‐‐ individual universities. A theoretical framework, in part offered by Stephen Ball's policy trajectory studies, is employed to examine the negotiation, resistance and even transformation of the original ministerial quality policy of 1991. A central contention is that the operation of the subsequent 3‐year cycle of quality reviews between 1993 and 1995 provides an example par excellence of a government strategy of ‘steering at a distance’.     

How valuable is ‘short project’ placement experience to higher education students?

Much of the research into higher education and its role in work-based learning, and especially in supporting undergraduate students on placements, has focused on longer-term internships and sandwich courses. Research has also concentrated on subject areas that have traditionally been associated with the above, for example business, health and engineering. By contrast, the aim of this study was to gather data from students on a much shorter period of placement categorised as a ‘short project’. In addition, the data recovered was from students studying within the social sciences paradigm, undertaking an undergraduate degree in education studies (not teacher training). The social sciences and humanities more generally have not been discussed to any great extent within the context of research on placement or work-based learning; the subject area of education studies is not covered by previous research. The results suggest that even a relatively short period of structured placement can be of significant benefit to students and provide them with an opportunity to assess their career direction and gain valuable experience. The article also considers to what extent this type of placement can be applied to other subject areas within higher education.     

‘The degree is not enough’: students’ perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability

The UK Government is calling upon higher education students to see their learning as an investment that will give them direct benefits in the labour market. At the same time, the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in labour market has been changing in recent times. Based on a qualitative study with 53 final‐year undergraduate students in a pre‐1992 university, this article examines the way higher education students understand the role of their educational credentials in relation to their future employability. It shows that students perceive their academic qualifications as having a declining role in shaping their employment outcomes in what is perceived to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market.     

Routes through higher education: BME students and the development of a ‘specialisation of consciousness’

With changing demographics and the advent of mass higher education, there has been a significant impact on graduate transitions which has led to greater inequalities in access to social support during the transitionary period between undergraduate study and entrance into the labour market. This article explores the experiences of students in their final year of undergraduate study by drawing on 43 interviews with Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students. Using Bourdieu, we argue that BME students preparing to enter the labour market display a ‘specialisation of consciousness’: a set of practices framed by their prior background and experience, choice of university and the support derived from attending university. ‘Specialisation of consciousness’ is an ongoing process in which BME students identify and understand racial inequalities in higher education and accept the limiting consequences these have on transitions into the labour market or further study.     

‘The balancing act’ – Irish part-time undergraduate students in higher education

While the numbers of part-time students has increased in higher education in Ireland, little is known about these students or about how they balance their study and other commitments. Drawing on a larger study on Irish students’ experiences in higher education, this article attempts to address this gap in research and reports on Irish part-time undergraduate students’ socio-demographic and institutional characteristics. It further explores the balance between part-time students’ academic study and their life situations. The article proposes some recommendations with regard to policy concerning part-time students, particularly in the area of financial support available to part-time learners. It also calls for expanding opportunities for participation in part-time study in the light of changing demography and provision of resources to facilitate students’ participation in higher education. Although the findings of this article broadly agree with those of international studies, more research is needed into the experiences of part-time students in higher education.     

The role of social capital in students’ perceptions of progress in higher education

This paper aims to analyse the effects of students’ social relationships at university on students’ success. Specifically, whether a student with heterogeneous relationships obtains better academic results than a student whose relationships are mostly with classmates. Further, the research examines whether students’ social relationships make up for their parents’ lack of human capital. A survey was answered by a sample of 867 students from universities in the metropolitan region of Barcelona. The findings suggest that the effects of social relationships are not always positive. The benefits of social networks at university interact with the type of degree studied, the student’s dedication to studies, and the student’s social class. Perceptions of progress for each category of students is different: It is more positive for those with frequent heterogeneous relations, who do not work or do so for a few hours, and for those who are enrolled in “hard” science courses.     

‘Feedback interpreters’: the role of learning development professionals in facilitating university students’ engagement with feedback

Understanding how students engage with assessment feedback is a key concern of higher education professionals. Research commonly represents the perspectives of students and academic staff, yet little consideration is given to the role of learning development staff, despite these individuals supporting students when interpreting and implementing feedback. We report the findings from interviews with learning developers working in a UK University, exploring their insights into the barriers students confront when engaging with feedback, and into the role of learning developers within the feedback landscape. This study suggests that, while many challenges exist for staff and students in the context of assessment feedback, learning development professionals are able to provide a meaningful source of guidance, in partnership with academic staff, and are able to promote students’ development through dialogic interactions. Hitherto these interactions have not been fully explored, yet they provide powerful insight into the hidden processes of feedback recipience.     

‘Frictional’ relationships … tension in the camp: focusing on the relational in under-represented students’ experiences in higher education

Drawing upon data collected as part of a research project exploring diversity in Irish higher education, this article focuses on the relational realm of under-represented students’ experiences. It commences with a brief overview of the background and context as well as the methodology of the study. The article then presents and explores a number of interrelated findings with regard to the relationships experienced by these undergraduates, both with other students and with their external friends and acquaintances. Friction was evident in the accounts of the respondents and this article argues that an increased focus on the relational is required by institutions, given the central role played by the social experience in the retention of students in higher education. Further, it is argued that education for diversity and inclusion be incorporated as an explicit and integrated component in all higher education curricula in order to foster mutual understanding and respect between student groups, within the broader educational community and ultimately in the wider society.     

Working with students in higher education – professional conceptions of teacher educators

The objective of this research is to identify the professional conceptions that guide teacher educators in their work with students, to learn about the nature of these conceptions and to distinguish among them. This aim is important because the conceptions formulated by those working in higher education guide their professional practice and affect their everyday conduct. Multidimensional categorical content analysis of the data shows that the conceptions can be characterized according to specific criteria. The research findings reveal three types of conceptions. The first conception is that the role of teacher-educators is to assist students in succeeding in their studies and to expand ties with them. The second conception is that teacher-educators should empower students and help them grow and construct their professional identity as teachers. The third conception is that in guiding their students teacher-educators should mediate between teaching theories and practices.     

The modelling of ‘dissonant’ study orchestration in higher education

Attention is drawn in the present study to atypical patterns of contextualised learning engagement that are often difficult to interpret because, at face value, they exhibit varying degrees of conceptual dissonance. Against a summary of the practical and methodological problems associated with researching the phenomenon of ‘dissonance’, a review is presented of how it may manifest itself in differing contexts, and with what implied or observed associated effects. The empirical question of how ‘dissonance’ may be interpreted and modelled is addressed and it is argued that, in general, the phenomenon can be naturally accommodated within an interference observed model of student learning by virtue of violations of defined ‘conceptual boundaries’ within the model at an individual, or subgroup, response level. An example of an observed interference model of student learning in the form of a common factor model is introduced and is then further used to illustrate how such conceptual violations may occur in practice.