Being creative in understanding what we have and what more we need to know

Iain Jones, Education and Professional Studies ,

Newman University College

REAL Conference, University of Gloucestershire,

16 June 2010

Collaborative research and ways of understanding complexities of student identities

• To reflect on findings from research by eight lecturers from Education and Professional Studies at NUC that investigated complexities of specific situated experiences of widening participation

• To debate how to deepen understandings of the complexities of student experiences

Introduction: Phase 1 of research

January-October 2009

Funding: Higher Education Academy. Part of national seminar series Access and Success For All?

Rationale:Collaborative research and ways of understanding complexities of student identities

Findings and emerging themes:At each undergraduate level

Emerging issues: Implications for further research

HE Academy National Seminar Series: HE Academy National Seminar Series: Access and Success for AllAccess and Success for All

Exploring the insights into the expectations, needs Exploring the insights into the expectations, needs and experiences of first year undergraduate students and experiences of first year undergraduate students

in Education Studies through collaborative action in Education Studies through collaborative action researchresearch

Newman University CollegeNewman University CollegeNovember 11 2009November 11 2009

Discourses of widening participation

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Rationale for study and presentation: Understanding the complexity of

experiences

Problematise notion of transition as series of singular events and attempts to “make them smooth”

( Lynch and Field, 2007:10)

Rather than being predicated on deficit models of potential entrants and positioning students as lacking aspirations, information or academic preparation , transformation requires serious and far –reaching structural change (Corrigan,1992) which is to be informed by under –represented groups

(Jones and Thomas, 2005:619)

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Complexity of meanings

the question of access must be inverted : it is not only a question of access of the excluded into universities, it is also a question of access of universities into the knowledge of the excluded (Shanahan, 1997 : 71)

Themes in literature review

• Contrasting ways of representing and understanding policy

• Discourses of widening participation

• Concept of habitus

• Processes of curriculum design and change

Contrasting ways of representing and understanding policy

Colebatch (1998)

Vertical dimension- policy goals-sacred ?

“rational pursuit of legitimately chosen objectives” ( 1998:63)

Horizontal dimension- policy as process- profane?

“ the contest between agencies, about processes and ambiguity”

Jones and Thomas (2005)

Discourses of widening participation(Jones and Thomas, 2005)

(Jones and Thomas, 2005)Strand Focus Examples

‘Academic’ Deficit model Attribution of low levels ofAspiration Information Preparation

‘Utilitarian’ ‘Double deficit’ model ‘Inadequacies’ – low aspirationsWeaker levels of attainment

‘Transformative’ Radical model Structural changes informed by under represented groups

Analysis and use of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus

Reay (1998); Reay et al ( 2001);Reay et al (2009)

enables us to understand individuals as a complex amalgam of their past and present

but an amalgam that is always in the process of completion (1998:521)

Reay (1998) and in her subsequent work emphasises dynamic relationships between

-individual- familial- institutional forms of habitus

Processes of curriculum design and change

Life history research can contribute to this process

Meaning is given to life experiences. Using biographical approaches enabled the voices of participants to be

heard, placing them central to the research process as they reflected upon, interpreted, gave meaning to and constructed past events and experiences within a social context (Merrill and Crossan 2000:2)

Incorporating the understandings of learners

It must also encourage critical reflection, together with an understanding of the constructed qualities of knowledge and the various implications of this

(Jones and Thomas, 2005:619)

Emerging themes for further research?

To be identified in presentation to follow

• Micro- Subject Area and module level

Education and Professional Studies

• Meso- Programme level

Combined Honours Programme

• Macro- Institutional level

To be discussed

What are implications of presentation for further

research?

Questions for discussion and reflections on research methods

1. What are issues and implications for further research on student identities?

2. How can we facilitate students as researchers?

Understanding the complexity of experiences

Focus identified (following Reay, 1998; Reay et al, 2001; Thomas, 2002; Thomas and Jones,2005; Burke,2009) designed to explore meanings, norms and beliefs students gave to four overlapping areas

• Why they chose to study for a degree and their expectations of HE • Why they chose to study at NUC

• Their initial experiences of NUC and of their course

• The relationship between their experiences of being a student and other parts of their lives.

Why focus groups?

• “ the expression of differences” (Morgan, 1992:185) and hearing a range of opinions and experiences (Bloor et al, 2001:52)

• Above all it is useful to work with pre-existing groups because they provide one of the social contexts within which ideas are formed and decisions are made (Kitzinger, 1994:105 ; my emphasis)

• Use of dual exercises – open questions and photographic interpretations- a ‘ close reading’ (Prosser, 2006) generating multiple meanings

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Photo elicitation

The use of photo elicitation within the focus group (British Sociological Association, 2009) was designed to explore the meanings that the students gave to images

Emerging themes

• Identities, choices and ‘fitting in’: “I’m not going to say how many years gap I had between Access and school!”

• ‘Fitting In’ and dimensions of habitus : “Climbing a barrier”:

• Theorisations of policy approaches to widening participation: “Raising up a storm”

“ I’m not going to say how many years gap I had between Access and

school”

Nina recalled her initial doubts

I didn’t tell my mum and my sisters not even my dad [ laughs] literally six weeks into the course. I think it was when I got my first assignment back and I passed it and as soon as I passed it I said I’ve not been going to work, I‘ve been going to College [ laughs]. It was literally a sense of now or never.

Ann, by contrast, has experienced different family reactions to her decisions

Even now they don’t support you…. It’s still like that now

“Climbing a barrier”

Ann – a connection between emotional experiences and her expectations of academic support. Lack of support she has had from her mum and sister reinforced response she perceives from one of her two subject areas

• “ Open door policy” – her perception- or “ This is what it’s like in H.E.” - a tutor’s reaction when she asked to see her

Different ways of understanding specific institutional identities and practices and learners’ identities combine the academic, utilitarian and transformative (Jones and Thomas,2005).

“ Raising up a storm”

Interplay between each of the strands in the discourses of widening participation

Ann: We didn’t think we was good enough to come into education

…. A transformative approach to access must stress the idea that higher education should be changed to permit it to both gauge and meet the needs of under –represented groups (Jones and Thomas, 2005 :619)

Healey and Jenkins ( 2009:7 ) Amended from Healey ( 2005:70)

Next phase of research :Developing students as researchers

Our argument :Theorising policy approaches to

widening participation• The accounts in the research disrupted the discourse of a

rational model of widening participation

• Interviews and focus groups suggested the complexity of meanings students attributed to their experiences

• Meanings need to be read in understanding discourses of policy approaches to widening participation and how policies are made and re-made / formed and re-enacted at an institutional level

• Our research provided us with basis for further work on the complexities of these meanings

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Questions for discussion

1.What are issues and implications for further research on student identities?

2. How can we facilitate students as researchers?

References and further information

Further details on specific strands of phase 1 of

research:http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ourwork/inclusion/RSS_Newman_111109

For further discussion:iain.jones@newman.ac.uk

References

Bloor, M; Frankland, J; Thomas; M and Robson, K (2001) Focus Groups in Social Research. London: Sage

British Sociological Association (2009) What Is Visual Sociology? Available at http://www.visualsociology.org.uk/whatis/index.php (Accessed: 29 June 2009)

Colebatch, H.K (1998) Policy. Buckingham: Open University Press

HEFCE (2001) Strategies for widening participation in higher education. Bristol: Higher Education Funding Council for England, Guide 01/36

HEFCE (2009) Request for widening participation strategic assessments. Bristol: Higher Education Funding Council for England, January 2009/01,

Kitzinger, J (1994) ‘The methodology of focus groups: the importance of interaction between research participants’, Sociology of Health and Illness,16(1):103-121

Lynch, H and Field, J (2007) ‘Getting Stuck, Becoming Unstuck: Transitions and Blockages between Learning Contexts’ Transitions and learning in the life course: insights from the Learning Lives Project Symposium, CRLL Conference. 22-24 June 2007, University of Stirling, Scotland.

Merrill, B and Crossan, B (2000) ‘Lifestories and learning: the role of gender in influencing participation and non-participation in FurtherEducation Scotland’ Paper submitted to the ESREA Biography Network Conference on Gender, Learning and Biography Roskilde, Denmark 2000

Prosser, J (2006) Researching with visual images: Some guidance notes and a glossary for beginners , Real Life Methods: Working Paper. National Centre for Research Methods at the University of Manchester and Leeds

Reay, D (1998) ‘Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’; familial and institutional habituses and higher educational choice’ Journal of EducationPolicy, 13:4, 519-529

Reay, D., Davies,J.,David,M., and Ball,S (2001) ‘Choices of Degree or Degrees of Choice? Class,’ Race’ and the Higher Education Choice Process’, Sociology, 35:4, 855-874

Thomas, E (2002) ‘Student retention in higher education: the role of institutional habitus’, Journal of Education Policy, 17:4, 423-432

Jones, R and Thomas, E (2005) ‘The 2003 UK Government Higher Education White Paper: a critical assessment of its implications for the access and widening participation agenda’, Journal of Education Policy, 20:5, 615-630