A phenomenological study highlighting the voices of students with mental health difficulties concerning barriers to classroom learning

Despite the Mental Health Foundation (2012 Mental Health Foundation. 2012. Mental Health Statistics. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk. Google Scholar]) stating that each year, one in four people in the United Kingdom (UK) will have some kind of mental health difficulty, students from this group are underrepresented in further education (FE) colleges. In light of this, the purpose of this exploratory research, which was rooted in the phenomenological paradigm, was to investigate the barriers to classroom learning that existed among adult students who had severe and enduring mental health difficulties, as well as how they perceived that these could be overcome. With the aim of foregrounding the learners’ voices, five students from a cookery course, set up specifically for this target group, were studied using a case-study approach. The results revealed that there were many fears connected with the learning process, particularly in relation to failure and relapse, as well as how the teacher would treat them. The actual process of affording these vulnerable students a unique opportunity to be heard raised both ethical and methodological dilemmas, which have implications for future work among this group of students. However, the results also revealed that once the barriers were overcome, their learning had a significant impact not just on their cookery skills, but on their lives as a whole. This study concludes by suggesting that colleges need to purposely educate and support teachers in how best to work with such students and that more research be carried out among this group of vulnerable students.