Perceptions of personal development planning in sociology and social science: the Scottish higher education context

Dr James Moir and Professor Catherine Di Domenico, School of Social and Health Sciences, University of Abertay, Dundee

Dr Stephen Vertigans and Dr Philip W. Sutton, School of Applied Social Studies, Robert Gordon University

Abstract

In the United Kingdom (UK) it has been just over ten years since personal development planning (PDP) was proposed by the National Commission into Higher Education (Dearing 1997), and, since then, it has become a central feature which has been put into operation across the sector. This has come about as the result of an awareness that in a globalised education and workplace market, students will need to be more competitive in developing and marketing their academic and other skills. Nowhere is this more keenly pursued than in the Scottish higher education system which has adopted a quality-enhancement approach. In this context, PDP is viewed as crucial ‘added value’ aspect of students’ higher education experience.

However, whilst the basic principles of PDP are generally accepted, there is something of a paradox, for at a time when education and work are becoming more globalised, students are being encouraged to look inward at themselves in order to become more self-determined. Yet, setting aside what may be for many sociologists their inclination to be sceptical of such individualist notions, it is therefore possible to view PDP as a paradoxical outcome of an increasingly globalised world. This paper considers this paradox by drawing upon an empirical study that highlights these tensions.

Introduction

It has been just over ten years since PDP was proposed by the National Commission into Higher Education (NCHE) (Dearing 1997). The broad aim of PDP put forward in the report ‘of a means by which students can monitor, build and reflect upon their personal development’ (Dearing 1997: 141) has become enshrined in the Quality Assurance Agency’s guidance as ‘a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development’ (QAA 2001: 28).

This process is now a central feature of the student experience in higher education and has been actioned across the sector in different ways. The basic principles of PDP are action-orientated and cyclical and include the following dimensions:

1. goal-setting and ‘action’ planning;
2. doing (learning through the experience of doing with greater awareness);
3. recording (thoughts, ideas, experiences, evidence of learning);
4. reviewing (reflections on what has happened, making sense of it all);
5. evaluating (making judgements about self and own work and determining what needs to be done to develop/improve/move on).

However, whilst these principles are readily accepted, their translation into curricular developments and relationship with subject provision is less clear. When considering social science provision and how it can contribute to PDP, there needs to be some recognition of the multidisciplinary context in which subjects operate and the changing nature of course provision. Moreover, students in the social sciences, as part of their education, may well reflect upon and critique individualist notions of ‘personal development’ without setting this within prevailing social, political and economic conditions. However, setting aside what may be for many sociologists their natural inclination to be sceptical of such individualist notions, it is also possible to view PDP as a vehicle or tool for encouraging students to engage with the subject, and its relationship to other social science subjects they learn about, in terms of an overall learning process.

This is potentially a significant issue as the first-ever mapping and synthesis review of PDP processes (and their analogues) by the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information Centre found that most ‘adopted a prescriptive approach to PDP implementation in order to achieve course-specific outcomes’ (Gough et al. 2003: 2). The danger with such prescriptive approaches is that PDP may come to be seen as an imposition rather than something integral to the higher-education experience. By engaging with social-science staff and students in advance of designing a PDP process, a more inclusive approach can be adopted that builds in stakeholders’ views on content and delivery. In this way, PDP processes can be more readily tailored both to the social science educational experience and the Scottish higher education sector context in which PDP will become embedded.

Therefore, if the process of PDP is to become an integral part of the student learning experience, a number of fundamental constructs need to be accepted by staff and students. It is therefore crucial that these processes should be embedded firmly with the rest of the curricula/student experience and not seen as a separate activity or concept. The process also needs to be underpinned by institutional strategies, especially for teaching, learning and assessment and student support and needs to be learner-centred, in terms of supporting a wide range of different learning styles and motivations. The main outcome from such processes in terms of personal development will likely be a significant contribution to students becoming independent, autonomous, self-aware learners – something that many sociology lecturing staff view as essential given the ‘critical’ nature of the discipline. The processes should be relevant to students at all stages in their studies in higher education and employment and link to previous developments in schools and further education. A key feature should be an effective and easily grasped delivery model that helps students engage in a progressive process of collation through a portfolio of evidence such as an e-portfolio approach. And finally, the process needs to be supported, not only by an effective recording model but also by staff who can provide supervision and advice, particularly when students are learning the PDP process.

These aims can be set within the effective learning framework (ELF) model for student learning which has been developed by the Joint Working Group (JWG) of Universities Scotland and the Scottish Advisory Committee on Credit and Access (SACCA) who were charged with developing an effective implementation model for PDP in Scottish higher education. The concept of ELF is based on the principle that PDP is just one of many processes embedded within a general framework of learning, teaching and assessment strategies, careers information and guidance, and learners’ personal aspirations and experiences. The framework encourages institutions to consider the holistic aspects of the student learning experience and how these should be linked, in terms of (a) the institution directly supporting the student’s learning experience (e.g., by encouraging academic staff to work more closely with careers staff) and (b) how the student integrates their internal learning experience (e.g., by being able to relate what they have learned to their range of employability and transferable skills) through a series of focused learner questions.

At the core of ELF is a self-audit process for students, set within the context of an overall student learning experience represented by considering the three fundamental aspects of academic curriculum, career aspirations and personal experience as a set of interlinked ‘spheres’ of academic, personal and career activity and experiences across the student life cycle. Although the intersections of these spheres represent the focus of self-audit for students, it is also the case that this model can be used to chart the influence of, in this case, sociology and social science staff and students’ ideas about the relationship between them. It was therefore our broad aim to examine staff and student perceptions of the ‘worth’ of this kind of model for planning and implementing curricular development.

This is important within the Scottish higher education context, which is distinct from the rest of the UK sector. One major difference is the four-year rather than the three-year honours degree. This is based, in part, upon the ‘gold standard’ for admission to university on the basis of Scottish Higher Grade qualifications. This one-year qualification is less demanding than the two-year Advanced Level qualification on offer in the rest of the UK, and, typically, students take more than three and sometimes up to five or six higher grades over successive years in secondary school between the ages of 16 and 18. As a consequence, students enter their studies in higher education with a more broadly based general level of education rather than the more specialised A-Level route. This has also continued on into higher education in the Scottish system with students traditionally studying a broader curriculum in the early stages of their programmes. It is also the case that the unclassified general degree which can be awarded after three years of study is still viewed as a valuable award in its own right, although most students enrol for an honours award.

Another important feature of the Scottish higher education system is the emphasis on quality enhancement as a key driver of the quality system. However, this does not mean that quality assurance takes a back seat but rather there is a recognition that improvement and advancement in higher education is very much dependent upon understanding the nature of a system now founded upon wider participation. This is very much within the tradition of an egalitarian approach to education in Scotland and the need to understand and meet the demands of such diversity. It is also the case that a focus on quality enhancement has led to a number of funded projects on a range of interconnected themes. The work of the enhancement themes is planned and directed by the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee (SHEEC). SHEEC manages the programme of enhancement-theme activity in the context of a five-year programme and covers such areas as the first year experience, employability, integrative assessment and flexible delivery. It would be reasonable to say that this approach has attracted considerable interest and praise from those involved in higher education, both from within the UK and overseas. However, it is still the case that despite this distinctive approach, the Scottish higher education system shares many features in common with the rest of the UK, including acting upon sector-wide initiatives such as PDP. In this respect, the Scottish higher education system is much the same as the rest of the UK although the implementation of such initiatives is framed by its distinctive nature.

Project design and methods

As the PDP policy is both UK-national yet necessarily diverse in implementation, it was expected that there may well be similarly diverse student and staff expectations of PDP in national and regional contexts. This project focused upon the Scottish higher education sector and involves an initial investigation of existing PDP provision on undergraduate sociology and social science degree schemes. This informed the development of an electronic questionnaire which social science students in selected universities and further education institutions were asked to complete in order to examine one side of the ‘perception equation’.

Staff perspectives were gained through questionnaires and semi-structured in-depth interviews covering how they regard the new emphasis on PDP as a feature of academic provision. Sociology as a discipline has now extended into a range of multidisciplinary areas within the social sciences, and the aim of this aspect of the project was to therefore consider how it can dovetail with other disciplines in relation to PDP, what it offers that complements these and what it can offer that is unique.

Three main research questions followed from the above:

1. To what extent is the ‘buy-in’ to PDP amongst sociology and social science academic staff and students across Scottish tertiary education within the partner institutions?
2. How, if at all, do staff and students see this as being translated into curricular developments across a range of social-science programmes of study?
3. What similarities and differences are there in the perceptions of staff and students in their understanding of and ‘buy-in’ into the value of PDP within an ELF context?

Unlike more vocationally targeted degree schemes, social science degrees are interdisciplinary and inevitably lead to varied career destinations. Therefore, PDP processes need to be shaped around this diversity, and both staff and student participation at the design stage should be a central feature if PDP is to be successful. Although diverse career outcomes should be seen as a strength rather than a weakness of undergraduate social science, confusion and uncertainty exist about personal development and future employment prospects, particularly in the early stages of social science degrees. It is sometimes the case that in the early periods of such degree schemes, student retention is a major problem. Improving the students’ understanding of the connections between higher education skills, personal and professional development and employment should make a positive contribution to combating student attrition. If PDP processes are to help improve retention rates, then more information is required about student expectations and requirements. In other words, staff and students should be able to engage actively with the PDP process rather than experiencing it as an imposition.

The Dearing Report began the rethinking of PDP and recording student achievement in HE. PDP has come to be seen as a main part of this, and expectations of what it might achieve are high. PDP is expected to improve student progression and retention rates, enhance key skills and help to make students more employable. Beyond such measurable outcomes though, PDP is concerned with personal development, not simply academic achievement or career planning. One part of this project will be to discover what students understand by this framing and whether they consider the concept of personal development to be a legitimate goal of higher education. Although there is a large literature on PDP-related schemes, this is not a coherent body of work in relation to effectiveness, type of scheme, balance between descriptive and evaluative research and different national contexts. However, the general assumption is that PDP and associated schemes are seen as helpful by many students, teachers and employers. Due to the specific staff/student comparison within the Scottish higher education context, the project concentrated on the current PDP debate and case studies within the emergent literature in evaluating this initiative.

Staff perceptions of PDP

A literature search relating to a previous PDP survey was conducted as the basis for the design of an interview schedule for use with staff in higher and further education institutions about their perceptions of PDP. The most useful paper in relation to this was Brennan and Shah’s Report on the Implementation of Progress Files (2003). This was used as a ‘baseline’ source in order to construct the interview schedule, focusing around key issues such as responsibility for PDP in institutions, the extent of adaptability for sociology and social science, perceived drivers for undertaking PDP, the use of electronic portfolios, etc.

Contact was made with staff in social science/sociology departments who have an involvement in PDP activity, and a programme of interviews commenced. Three Scottish universities, one pre-1992 and two post-1992, were involved. This interview phase involved an iterative process such that issues arising from the initial interviews were used to inform areas for further probing in later interviews. It is important to note that this aspect of the research was not concerned with obtaining a representative sample of staff perceptions about PDP but rather pursued substantive issues that the introduction of PDP initiatives raises for staff and for the way in which social science and sociology are involved. These interviews were transcribed and entered into a qualitative software programme and key themes extracted and examined, especially with respect to contradictory issues. Table 1 provides a distillation of the perceived benefits of PDP that were extracted from these interviews, and Table 2 highlights perceived problems.

Table 1: Perceived benefits of PDP

It is evident from these extracted points from the interviews that PDP is considered of value for students in terms of encouraging reflective skills related to their studies and in teasing out issues of vocational relevance, especially in terms of the employability agenda which is now a prominent driver for the sector. It is also the case that there are merits seen in adopting an electronic platform for students to engage with. However, as Table 2 indicates, these positive endorsements were to some extent offset by tensions which are seen as besetting the practical implementation of PDP. Therefore, it was evident that there was something of a perceived principle-versus-practice dichotomy. Whilst in principle PDP is regarded positively, a number of practical concerns were raised about its actual implementation, which is perceived as being more problematic.

Table 2: Perceived problems of PDP

It was apparent in these interviews that several lines of tension are perceived which affect the implementation of PDP. One major aspect of this is the extent to which PDP is dealt with on an institution-wide basis and its relevance for sociology and social science. In effect, this is an issue of generality versus specificity. However, there is also more to this, which bears closer inspection in terms of the way in which PDP can, at a broad level, appear to be related to the issue of enhancing employability which some staff do not see as their subject in the sense that it is not an academic matter as such. On the other hand, there are members of staff who have suggested that PDP is something that could be used to encourage reflexivity, which they see as a key academic skill for sociology and social science students. A key issue that cuts across the above practical concerns is ensuring that whilst the ‘personal’ nature of the process stays with the student, there are means of ensuring engagement that bring about the ‘development’. On the one hand, it is something that is within the individual student’s control, but, on the other hand, it needs to be accessible to allow staff to assess its impact.

These findings resonate with Clegg and Bradley’s recent research (2006) on the varying perceptions of PDP within one institution. They propose three ‘ideal types’ encapsulating the attitudes of different subject or discipline areas, which they call professional, employment and academic:

The first ideal type, the professional, was strongly influenced by the requirements stipulated by professional and statutory bodies, for instance the Teacher Training Agency and the specific health care professional bodies such as the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. The second, employment, includes both a general orientation to graduate employment and also specific work placement during study. This model was associated with areas such as management and business, sport and leisure, and those areas of applied science and engineering where the course focus was primarily towards employment rather than discipline. The final model, academic, was focused on the academic development of the student, incorporating metacognitive skills and those of the specific subject discipline. Humanities and social sciences predominated in the academic. The model also included some areas of pure science where the emphasis was more on subject understanding.
(Clegg and Bradley 2006: 64)

In summary, the main themes from these interviews are that there are lines of tension for the implementation of PDP which centre around its perceived purpose in terms of employability versus academic criteria. Other tensions for PDP have also emerged from these interviews, notably with respect to notions of ‘the personal’ and the focus on individual agency, something that sociologists would perhaps wish to adopt a critical perspective on. Lambier and Ramaekers (2006) point out that the nature of any virtual learning environment defines the nature of the learning process via provision of tools and templates for actions. All too often, the learning process is thus subtly moulded as an instrumental rather than a critical process. They argue that learning in this context has become a process of managing information (including personal information), rather than discovery, insight and growth, and that the virtual has enabled a managerial model of learning to be surreptitiously substituted for the dialogic and critical model which characterises the ideal of learning in higher education. It is evident that this danger is something that staff in sociology and social science may well be reflexively aware of as an undercurrent that can pull PDP off course in terms of being a meaningful reference point for students in their studies.

Student perceptions of PDP

This part of the project aimed to accumulate information about student perceptions of PDP processes and comprised two main aims: (1) to identify any elements within PDPs that students consider are useful and (2) to establish which delivery methods are likely to be most successful. The student respondents involved in the project were based at four Scottish universities.

The research commenced with the appointment of a summer scholarship student in June 2006. During the scholarship, all further and higher education institutions in Scotland were contacted to try to establish whether they delivered social science courses. Institutions with social science courses were subsequently contacted to try to establish whether they had introduced PDPs. Although the response rate for this stage of the project was limited, a number of universities were identified and contacted about participating in the next stage of the research. This led to four universities becoming involved, selected from different Scottish cities and including both ‘old’ and ‘newer’ institutions (Abertay Dundee, Robert Gordon University [RGU], Edinburgh and Glasgow Caledonian). Because the research aimed to undertake comparisons about experiences, departments with and without PDPs were examined. This enabled comparative analysis to be undertaken according to a range of student experiences. To ensure confidentiality, the results are not divided by university.

As part of the scholarship, the student examined C-SAP documents relating to PDPs and also undertook a broader literature review. To date, research into student perceptions had been restricted to a small number of projects. These include Clegg (2004), who draws a conclusion from a number of studies that PDPs had positive effects on student learning, attainment and approaches to learning. East (2005) reports on research by the University of Glamorgan which discovered 70 per cent of students who took part in pilot studies into PDPs were positive about the value of progress files in facilitating their learning experience.

Based upon existing C-SAP documentation and limited findings from other studies, a questionnaire was designed for students at the participating universities. To try to enhance levels of accessibility, an electronic questionnaire was designed which could be accessed remotely. Participating departments issued the web link through communal emails to their students. By using the link, students could access the questionnaire and respond. The questionnaire was divided into four sections which mainly consisted of fixed options and had been piloted by some RGU students in advance. The first section, ‘You and Your Degree’, sought to establish information about the respondent: gender, age, ethnicity, year of study, university attended and title of degree scheme. This is not the main focus of this paper and therefore is not discussed here. Section B was only for students who attended a university with a PDP. They were asked about the type of PDP, the years in which it operates, what the PDP includes, support tools, evaluation opportunities and documentation procedures. Section C, ‘Your Views on Personal Development Plans’, was also designed for students with PDPs. Students were asked for their views on how helpful the process had been for academic studies, links with careers, integrating into the department, support, personal reflection and the effectiveness of record-keeping and review meetings. The students were given an opportunity to provide suggestions for improving the PDP process. The final section (D), ‘Your Views on Personal Development Plans’, was for students who did not have a PDP. They were asked to respond to questions about the type of PDP that should be used, when it should be available, what should be included, whether a support tool should be available, whether they should be able to evaluate the PDP and what should happen to the documentation. Finally, they were asked how helpful they thought the PDP would be with regards to the areas identified in Section C (discussed above) and how the process should be implemented.

Students in Years 1 and 4 were invited to participate because they were considered to possess different experiences, expectations and hopes. A total of 74 degree students responded to the survey. Of these, 21 had experienced PDP (23 less two from a university without a PDP who answered the wrong part of the survey), and 51 had not. This latter figure includes 15 students of the university who actually had a PDP of which they were unaware. Because these students were under the impression that they did not have a PDP, their responses have been collated within that category. Analysis of the results was divided according to the sections and questions. After the questionnaire data was examined, two focus groups, each consisting of ten students, were held with RGU Year 1 and 4 students to explore some of the salient issues in greater depth. The remainder of this paper discusses the questionnaire’s main findings.

Views on PDPs (students with PDP only)

This section was addressed by twenty-one students who had experienced PDPs. It does not include students who should have had a PDP but did not think this was the case. Two students who answered the wrong section are excluded on the grounds that they were describing procedures that did not exist.
When asked about the type of PDP that was in place, e.g., paper based or electronic, 76 per cent of the 21 students were most accustomed to paper-based plans. In response to a question about the years in which PDPs had been introduced, 67 per cent of respondents thought that it had been introduced for Year 1 students. Perceptions of the following years gradually dropped, with only 48 per cent considering that PDPs were in place for Year 4. 29 per cent did not know when the PDP operated.

Table 3: Perceptions of elements within PDP

The most identifiable element within PDPs was a personal tutor (62 per cent), followed by personal reflection on academic achievement (57 per cent) and progress review meetings (52 per cent). At the opposing end, the careers service was not selected by any respondents, and only 5 per cent included formal assessment or examination of PDP.

A third of respondents who had experience of PDP were aware that a support tool was available for the PDP process. When asked if they had an opportunity to evaluate the department’s delivery of PDP, 95 per cent either didn’t know or thought they had no such opportunity. Large numbers (86 per cent) were also unsure what happened to their PDP documentation after graduation.

Student views on the value of PDPs were varied. Less than a quarter (five respondents) found it helpful for their academic studies. The same proportion suggested the PDP process helped to see the link between academic subjects and future careers more clearly. Slightly more (six respondents) felt it provided an effective record that they would use in the future and that continuous personal reflection on achievements had been helpful. However, most students disagreed with these statements or were uncertain about them (see Table 4).

Table 4: Views on existing PDPs

	Strongly agree	Agree	Unsure	Disagree	Strongly disagree
The PDP has been helpful for my academic studies.	0	5	6	3	7
The PDP process has helped me to see the link between academic subjects and future careers more clearly.	0	5	5	4	7
The PDP provides an effective record that I expect to use in the future.	1	5	5	5	5
Progress review meetings have been useful.	2	4	6	4	5
The PDP process helps students to integrate into the department.	0	7	5	4	5
The department provides effective support for the PDP process.	2	6	5	3	5
Continuous personal reflection on achievements has been helpful.	1	5	7	3	5
Number of possible respondents to each statement = 21

Respondents were slightly more positive about whether PDPs helped students to integrate into the department, with a third in agreement. The most positive response was for the department providing effective support for the PDP process with eight respondents agreeing or agreeing strongly.
The final question for these students asked for suggestions for improving the PDP process. In light of the nature of the responses highlighted above, it was unsurprising that a number of critical remarks were raised. These included:

• Little ownership amongst staff or students.
• Staff are disinterested.
• Relevance needs to be made clearer.
• Limited attempts to connect to employment criteria.
• Clearer guidance is required.
• Needs to be more achievement-based.
• Staff should conduct progress reports.

Views on PDPs (students without PDP only)

51 students responded in this section, including 15 from a university that did have a PDP (discussed above).

When asked about their preferred type of PDP, 43 per cent expressed a preference for electronic PDP (43 per cent) followed by a mixture of both electronic and paper versions (37 per cent). Only 6 per cent chose a paper-based system. Within the focus groups, the general perspective was that both electronic and paper copies were important methods of collating details about academic development that could provide a useful basis on which to develop employment applications.

Responses to the years in which PDPs should operate were reasonably spread. Nearly half (47 per cent) wished to see it offered in Year 1 of study and slightly less (41 per cent) in Year 2. Years 3 and 4 were thought the most beneficial years for PDP (57 per cent and 59 per cent respectively). 20 per cent did not know to which year or years the PDP should apply. The range of views was also reflected within the focus groups. Year 1 students tended to place greater emphasis upon introducing PDPs during the induction day held at the commencement of their time at university. Yet, although it was thought that reference should be made to PDPs early in their academic careers, the emphasis should be grown incrementally across years. As one first-year student mentioned when asked about introducing PDPs, ‘Maybe in first year not so much. I can see second, third and fourth, but first year I think is a year for settling in like finding you know your interests and preferences in whatever subjects [ . . . ] I wouldn’t go too far with it in first year probably.’

By comparison, the comments of Year 4 students were more directly focused upon careers. This is perhaps unsurprising in light of the group meeting towards the end of their final year. As one student suggested, there was a need ‘to tie into that inevitable career choice at the end as early as possible.’ This point was developed by another student who stated:

'I think probably second year would be the better time to start really. But you have to try like you can’t just say what skills you are going to learn because well it’s kind of pointless unless you can tie them into something like into certain careers and about the skills you are learning thinking what career they want at the end of it.'

A few students suggested that it would be beneficial to embed PDPs within Year 1 so that students accept the commitment and are less likely to challenge the related work as an imposition. For example:

'The thing is, like, fair enough, in your first years of running it, people think this, ‘Oh God, it’s an extra burden’ because they’ve never had to do it before. But when you start getting the first years to start if that’s already a part of the curriculum they’re not gonna know any different. Do you see what I mean? It’s not gonna be like an extra task . . . if you start and it’s there then its part of your degree.'

Other students connected into the selection of modules which take place late in Years 2 and 3 because:

'It would be good to sort of briefly mention it in first year but in first year you’re not really concentrating on that sort of thing. But in second year, before you have to pick your choices in third and fourth year, you are given information of what you can go into, what sort of skills you need. You can sort of plan that when picking what courses you want to do and then obviously continue with third and fourth year.'

Students identified a number of elements that they thought should be included in a PDP (see Table 5).

Table 5: Views on what should be included in a PDP

It can be seen that students were most in favour of including career development record or CV (77 per cent) and a record of university achievement (75 per cent) in PDP. The least popular options were formal assessment of PDPs (14 per cent) and an audit of learning strategies (16 per cent). A further 8 per cent had no idea what PDPs should include.

A number of students in the focus groups picked up upon these issues. The value of a development approach to individual records was raised. Two fourth-year students suggested that ‘CVs . . . people miss things if you’ve got it all written down, you can discuss it so it can be more in your head bringing ideas of your computer kinda thing’ and ‘So it will help when you actually graduate and come to do your CV and apply for jobs rather than having to try and remember and forget half of it.’

A first-year student also identified the value of PDPs in tracking changes, in that ‘it’s quite useful to keep a record of how you change and the skills that you have got linked to it.’

Meetings with personal tutors were considered to be positive because they ‘know you, know your profile. They know what you’ve done and know what courses you have studied. They have got a rough idea of the last two or three years of a way you might be heading.’ A first-year student commented, ‘I think it’s important that you know the person who you are talking to because there is no point in speaking to someone who doesn’t know you now. I just think that’s a bit false.’ Another respondent added ‘because they’ll, like, know what, like, your strengths and stuff are so they will be able to, say, give you better advice than a complete stranger who doesn’t know you at all.’

Most respondents (80 per cent) were in favour of a support tool for PDPs being available for students to use. 90 per cent agreed that they should have an opportunity to evaluate PDPs. Opinions about what should happen to documentation after graduation were less clear-cut. 51 per cent thought that their PDP documentation should be kept by students while 37 per cent thought PDP documentation should be kept by both students and the department. Only a few respondents offered suggestions as to how long departments should keep PDP documentation after graduation. The most common response was for one year (six responses). Also suggested were two years (three responses) and up to five years (two responses).

When asked about the purpose of PDPs (Table 6 below), students were generally supportive of the possibilities. Particularly popular elements included the need for departments to provide effective support for the PDP process (40 either agreed or strongly agreed). The least favoured element of PDP was that it would help students to integrate into the department (24 respondents agreed or strongly agreed and twenty-one did not know). The element of PDP regarding the benefits of continuous personal reflection on achievements attracted the most negative responses (nine respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed). However, it should be noted that continuous personal reflection was rated positively by 35 other respondents. Unlike the students who had PDPs, there was no discernible difference according to the ages of the respondents.

Table 6: Student views on PDP

	Strongly agree	Agree	Unsure	Disagree	Strongly disagree
The PDP will be helpful for my academic studies.	2	29	13	5	2
The PDP process will help me to see the link between academic subjects and future careers more clearly.	7	21	17	6	0
The PDP will provide an effective record that I expect to use after graduation.	6	25	17	2	1
Regular progress review meetings should be included.	3	24	20	4	0
The PDP process will help students to integrate into the department.	3	21	21	5	1
The department will need to provide effective support for the PDP process.	11	29	10	1	0
Continuous personal reflection on achievements and goals will be helpful.	6	29	7	8	1
Number of possible respondents to each statement = 51

Within the focus groups, there was a tendency for Year 4 students to draw upon the links with careers, emphasising earlier points. For example, ‘I perhaps thought that you can identify the skills this is what you’re learning then it would help to identify people careers that would match up with those skills.’
Year 1 students also identified a lack of direction within their cohort and the indecision within the year about future prospects and believed that:

The development plan could actually encourage those who are thinking of leaving to stay on and there’re not fully aware of the paths that could lead afterwards. And so with a bit of guidance they might change their mind and they really might stick with it and end up doing alright with it.

Another student added in support, ‘I would look on it as more of a career thing, tailoring you towards a career rather than just a kind of, you know, review-of-your-year-to-date sort of thing, I would view it as directing me specifically towards something.’

Finally, a first year respondent explicitly addressed a requirement for direction, stating:

'Yeah I just think, ‘Yeah you need to kind of know where you are going’, and it’s fair enough you can view yourself as much as you want. But I personally prefer to know where this is going to lead to, because I need to know within myself how I’m doing and where things are going to lead onto.'

A number of suggestions were made about how the PDP process should be implemented:

• After staff and students have been informed. At present, a lack of knowledge was reported. It was suggested in the first-year focus group that: 'It should be just more formal classes and a bit of discussion based around this sort of the thing. Because we haven’t really had anything which comes to my mind about what we are actually going to do after, like how we’re going to tie up unless we are 100 per cent and being approached by a member of staff we haven’t really heard anything and you will always get the ones who will not just do it so a forward plan it would help to address that.'
• The number of meetings was contested within focus groups. Suggestions ranged from one meeting at the start of each year, prior to assessment and when choosing electives to the end of year or post-assessment period. The most popular response was: 'you could almost have it where you have one at the start of the year and then you could outline your goals. You could set an agenda and what you were hoping to achieve and possibly near towards the end of the year [ . . . ] you could have a review and see did you match your goals and that and if not how could you improve.'
• The rationale needs to be highlighted. Within the focus groups there was some discussion about students reacting differently. Conscientious students would be heavily involved; other students may aim to ignore. Consequently, ‘it just needs to be made clear then people will see that it’s for their benefit and it’s always a good thing whereas if it’s just sort of laid on by another class half the time doesn’t really count for anything.’
• The above point led to an inconclusive debate about whether PDPs should be compulsory to ensure maximum participation or voluntary, exemplified by the following first-year participant, ‘loads of people don’t even turn up for essential tutorials or lectures so the chances of them turning up for this unless they are genuinely interested is quite slim. There would have to be some kind of incentive.’
• The process should be simplified to ensure that it does not encroach on time for studying and fits within the course programme.
• Raise awareness before commencing Year 1.
• Links could be established with school final years, or, alternatively, the process should be initiated at the last year of school and then developed in the first year at university.
• Staff should be committed.
• Departments should make more formal connections with employers.

Overall there were 74 responses to the survey canvassing views on PDPs in Scottish higher education. Of these, 21 (28 per cent) respondents had already experienced a PDP, 51 (69 per cent) respondents had not. There were two (3 per cent) missed responses which have been excluded from subsequent analysis. Comparative analysis between these two groups produced some important differences, which raise concerns about the delivery of PDPs.

As Table 7 details, respondents with PDPs were more negative about the process, although older students were more inclined to perceive elements more favourably. With the exception of departmental support for the PDP process, two-thirds or more of students with PDPs either disagreed with the statements or were unsure about them. By comparison, students who had not experienced PDPs were much more positive, and more than half of them agreed with all the statements except one (the PDP process integrating students into the department).

Table 7: Comparative analysis about views on PDPs

Drawing upon these figures and the comments provided earlier, it is apparent that views of PDPs are more favourable amongst students without any experience. To a lesser extent, amongst students with PDPs, it is also considered more positively amongst Year 1 compared to Year 4. This would indicate that either there are problems with the current delivery of PDPs or that student expectations of PDPs are too high. From the student responses, there appears to be a number of problems including staff engagement, limited student awareness and, ultimately, a failure of the system to achieve its objectives, namely to provide students with a helpful link between academia and employment. A number of critical comments, including lack of relevance, limited ownership and weak connections between academic and employment criteria suggest that universities may need to place greater emphasis on existing PDPs. Positive responses from respondents who have not experienced PDPs and Year 1 students with PDPs highlighted popular support for the principles and a widely held view that it could be potentially beneficial to their degree studies. However, students with no experience often have little knowledge, and issues are consistently raised about implementation processes. There is an underlying concern across all the responses about the level of universities’ commitment. These will have to be addressed by supportive departments if the problems encountered by other students are to be avoided and PDPs are to fulfil their purpose.

Conclusion

It is evident from this study of both staff and student perceptions of PDP that there are potential benefits and pitfalls to PDP. Both staff and students view it as a positive contribution in terms of the Dearing Enquiry’s aim of supporting students in acquiring valuable skills in self-reflection and planning. However, it is also clear that whilst this is almost universally accepted in principle, the perceptions of implementation in our study raise some problematic issues. Whilst PDP is almost universally accepted in principle, the perceptions of implementation raise some problematic practical issues. Perhaps this is not to be entirely unexpected given that PDP has to function as a public institutional quality enhancement measure related to such themes as employability and the development of graduate attributes and, also, as something which is private and personal to students and within their control. It is precisely this tension between an advocacy of principle versus practice that is where political matters come into play. A discourse focused on personal development is something that is almost universally agreed upon as beneficial in principle. However, it is when people come to flesh out and specify what this means in practice that political matters are at stake. This is the point at which there has to be a commitment to action and where responsibility for those actions is apportioned.

There is a clear tension here for some between what they regard as the academic nature of personal development leading to personal growth, and the concomitant contribution to an educated citizenry, and the underlying national imperative which requires knowledge linked to economic wealth creation. However, in an era of mass higher education, it is often the latter that is a priority for governments. This political dimension to PDP can be lost when located inside the practical matters associated with education as an inner-directed process. Once set within this discourse, the practicalities of such matters as curricular design, delivery and assessment come into play. Moreover, if PDP is viewed as being driven by students themselves, then the political dimension dissolves away as they engage in the practicalities of the educational process. An inner-directed focus is not one that usually leads to a reflexive engagement with the political nature of PDP and the location of agency within the individual. Learning the process of PDP becomes the end in itself in an instrumentally driven fashion. In this way, learning is depoliticised in the sense that its purpose is driven down to the level of the personal.

A neoliberal discourse that stresses individual control, planning and choice is often justified in terms of a paradoxical discourse of a global knowledge economy that requires and structures the need for a greater focus on the flexibility of individuals. It is not the case that individuals can simply develop themselves through exercising freedom of choice but rather that an internationalised and globalised knowledge economy demands that people are ever-increasingly more adaptable to change. As we look outward to the global impact of this world upon our lives, so we are encouraged to look inward as a means of generating our capacity to change to meet these demands.

It is also somewhat paradoxical that in higher education the notion of widening participation and access has come at the expense of actual contact with other students and teaching staff. It is now individual students who must participate and learn by themselves as they engage in PDP, often mediated via a virtual learning environment. It is a moot point to consider this distant and introspective form of ‘participation’ as the result of expansion of higher education to meet the demands of the knowledge economy without much in the way of an accompanying expansion of resources. If the EFL (English as a foreign language) system is itself to be effective then these issues need to be addressed and faced up to. There are clearly tensions between the aims and implementation of PDP. This paper has also shown that it is not without its problems when applied to sociology and more broadly social science. Although, the political nature of its application is also something that cannot be ignored, it is possible to consider PDP as offering potential benefit to students in terms of reflexive learning. However, if it is implemented in an instrumental fashion then this benefit may well be lost. This would go against the grain of a Scottish higher education system founded upon an egalitarian notion of self-improvement and development.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the UK Higher Education Academy Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics under Grant 40/S/06.

References

Brennan, J. and Shah, T. (2003) Report on the Implementation of Progress Files, Centre for Higher Education Research and Information, Milton Keynes. Online at http://oro.open.ac.uk/324/1/ProgressFiles.pdf.

Clegg, S. (2004) ‘Critical Readings: Progress Files and the Production of the Autonomous Learner’, Teaching in Higher Education, 9 (3): 287–98.

Clegg, S. and Bradley, S. (2006) ‘Models of Personal Development Planning: Practice and Processes’, British Educational Research Journal, 32 (1): 57–76.

Dearing, R. (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society: The Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, Hayes: NCIHE Publications.

East, R. (2005), ‘A Progress Report on Progress Files: The Experience of One Institution’, Active Learning in Higher Education, 6 (2): 160–71.

Gough, D. A., Kiwan, D., Sutcliffe, K., Simpson, D. and Houghton, N. (2003) A Systematic Map and Synthesis Review of the Effectiveness of Personal Development Planning for Improving Student Learning, London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit.

Lambier, B. and Ramaekers, S. (2006) ‘The Limits of “Blackboard” Are the Limits of My World: On the Changing Concepts of the University and Its Students’ E-Learning’, 3: 544–51.

Quality Assurance Agency (2001) Guidelines for HE Progress Files, 28. Online at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/progressFiles/guidelines/progfile2001.asp.

The authors

Dr James Moir is a senior lecturer in sociology and Project Leader for the study reported on here. He currently holds a C-SAP Associate award. Professor Catherine Di Domenico is Professor of Social Development and previously held a C-SAP award for a project examining the impact of studying sociology on non-traditional university entrants after graduation. Dr Stephen Vertigans is a reader in sociology and collaborated with Dr Philip Sutton, formerly Senior Lecturer in Sociology at RGU, on this project.

A path analysis of first-year social science students’ engagement with their degree and Level 1 academic outcome

Dr Carl Walker, Stephanie Fleischer and Dr Sandra Winn, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton

Abstract

The expansion of higher education in the UK and attempts to widen participation have changed the context of undergraduate learning. This study examines student engagement with their degree. Quantitative data for 388 UK Level 1 students were used to develop a path analysis model of the relationship between Level 1 academic performance, gender, academic engagement, attendance and prior university entry points. Structural equation modelling allowed a detailed understanding of the direct and indirect effects of key variables that contribute to Level 1 learning outcomes, and findings are discussed within the context of structural changes to Level 1 student engagement imperatives with a view to improving the learning experience for all students.

Introduction

The expansion of higher education in the UK and attempts to widen participation have changed the context of undergraduate learning and teaching. Rapid growth in student numbers has greatly increased class sizes in many institutions (Universities UK 2001), and the student body has become more diverse, in terms of both demography and educational experiences prior to entry (Department for Education and Skills [DfES] 2003). Expansion of the system has, in part, been funded by shifting some of the costs of higher education to students and their families, and one consequence of this has been a substantial growth in student employment during term-time. For some students, term-time employment now occupies more time than academic work (Centre for Higher Education Research and Information and London South Bank University 2005).

At the same time as these policy developments, the learning and teaching environment has been altered by the growing use of new learning technologies. Virtual learning environments (VLEs) are now widespread in higher education institutions (Joint Information Systems Committee 2004) and are increasingly employed by academic staff to provide learning materials and interactive forms of learning such as electronic discussions (Kirkwood and Price 2005).

Student performance and attendance

Several studies have demonstrated a significant positive correlation between attendance and degree result (e.g., Romer 1993; Lamdin 1996; Woodfield et al. 2006). Borland and Howsen (1998) suggest that attendance, rather than being important in its own right, may be a proxy for other factors such as ability. However, research investigating the predictive effects on academic performance of both attendance and measures of ability have shown that attendance has an independent effect on academic outcome (Romer 1993, Gatherer and Manning 1998, Rogers 2001, Woodfield et al. 2006) although the extent of the relative importance of attendance has been debated (Devadoss and Foltz 1996, Gatherer and Manning 1998, Hunter and Tetley 1999). That said, there is generally little research on the causes of student absenteeism (Longhurst 1999) and Woodfield et al. (2006) suggested a general need for further research on attendance in higher education. Prior grade average is also believed to contribute to academic performance, with performance attained prior to college a reliable predictor of grade point average during a semester (Devadoss and Foltz 1996, Plant et al. 2005).

Other factors influencing student engagement

Studies conducted in the USA have usually found no significant association between number of hours engaged in study and academic performance (Schuman et al. 1985; Plant et al. 2005). Simply counting the number of study hours does not capture the complexity of students’ study patterns.
Hoskins and van Hooff (2005) analysed 110 undergraduates in the second year of a psychology degree and found that bulletin-board use influenced academic achievement, with those posting messages outperforming those not using or passively using bulletin boards. However, again, further work is needed to understand the relationship between student engagement in VLEs and academic performance.

Gender is another factor that has been shown to influence academic outcome. Gender has been shown to be related to degree achievement, (Simonite 2003), with women more likely to get good degrees than men although this may not be a trend followed for all ages (Richardson and Woodley 2003). The more focused learner identity of females is believed to lead them to work harder and more consistently. Generally, however, little research in the field has focused on student attendance rates and gender differences (Woodfield et al. 2006).

The rationale

Most of the research in the UK concerning student engagement and independent study has investigated the student experience of study, rather than attempting to quantify its relationship with academic outcomes. This work has revealed the difficulties that many students experience in adapting to a mode of learning and teaching which is at odds with the more didactic concepts of learning developed from earlier stages of their educational careers (Kember 2001).

In this paper, we disentangle the effects of some of the prominent variables which are thought to contribute to academic outcome. Path analysis and structural equation modelling allow researchers to look at the interrelation between direct and indirect effects on outcome variables and so has obvious utility for this work. We explore first-year students’ engagement with their academic work. Our aim is to quantitatively examine the relationship between measures of engagement with academic work, prior educational attainment, gender and Level 1 academic outcome.

Methodology

Participants

The sample comprised a group of students who completed Level 1 of the undergraduate programme in applied social science at the University of Brighton (n = 388). This was all of the students on our social science courses. These students study degrees in criminology, sociology, social policy, health and social care, social science and psychology, usually combining two subjects for a joint honours degree. Table 1 provides demographic and academic information on the sample. Our sample was strongly weighted toward females, but this is a good representation of the gender divide of students on our social science courses and many social science courses in the UK. Moreover, we have sufficient numbers of both men and women to include gender as a variable in the model.

Table 1: Demographic and academic constitution of Level 1 sample

Procedure

Data about prior educational attainment, lecture attendance, engagement with information technology (IT) learning materials, gender and Level 1 academic outcome were obtained. Data on academic performance was an average of students’ scores on the six modules that they undertook that year. Attendance data was collected from a compulsory module, ‘Social Science Research Methods’, which is taken by all first-year students. Prior educational attainment was a measure based upon the number of points scored through the UK Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) accreditation system (UCAS 2006). Entry points were obtained from students’ records.

Students’ engagement with independent study can be more difficult to measure. With the advent of VLEs in higher education, it has become possible to obtain empirical measures of some elements of students’ independent study activity. Many VLEs enable academic staff to track students’ usage of learning materials made available to students electronically. In the present study, engagement with IT learning materials was measured using the University of Brighton ‘StudentCentral’ system, which provides information and learning materials for students throughout the course. This particular measure was taken from the module on ‘Social Science Research Methods’ in Semester 2, which is taken by all Level 1 students on the applied social science degrees. This course was used since it had the most comprehensive development and use of IT learning materials.

Students who withdrew during the year were excluded from the study because their student records were incomplete.

Design and analysis

Preliminary analysis of this data was conducted to examine bivariate associations among the academic performance and academic engagement variables.

Exploratory path analysis was then used to examine the relationships between Level 1 academic outcome and gender, engagement and previous academic achievement. Path analysis allows the simultaneous estimation of multiple regression equations and provides estimates of direct and indirect impact of these variables on stipulated other variables in a model. Essentially, this means that we will be able to tease out in detail the matrix of relationships between the variables. Furthermore, path analysis allows the separation of direct and indirect associations between the endogenous and exogenous variables. Exogenous variables in a path model are those with no explicit causes whereas endogenous variables include intervening causal variables and dependent variables. So, as well as understanding the way in which Variable A directly influences Level 1 academic outcome, we can also look at the way in which Variable A influences Level 1 academic outcome through the way that it would influence a third variable, Variable C, which also influences Level 1 academic outcome. It is essentially an extension of the simple regression model where one dependent variable is modelled by a number of independent variables. The model allows for intervening endogenous variables that can in turn affect other endogenous variables (Neeleman et al. 2004).

Model fitting was hypothesis-driven, and exogenous variables were chosen following close scrutiny of the literature on student engagement and academic outcome (Devadoss and Foltz 1996; Hunter and Tetley 1999; Rogers 2001, Simonite 2003, Hoskins and van Hooff 2005, Woodfield et al. 2006). As such, it was exploratory rather than confirmatory.

The hypothesized model was run using Amos 6.0. As suggested by Bollen and Long (1993), several goodness-of-fit measures were used to test the fit of the model. This means that we have a number of ways of understanding how well the model of our predictor variables influenced Level 1 academic outcome. Chi-square was generated, although with large samples even trivial differences between data and model can give large chi-square values and unwarranted model rejection. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI) is derived from the comparison of a hypothesised model with the independence model (the model in which variables are assumed to be uncorrelated with the dependent variable) and has been suggested as an index of choice (Byrne 2000). The Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) is consistent with such measures as the CFI and also compares the specified model with that of the independence model. For both the TLI and the CFI, values of above 0.95 are considered to indicate superior fit (Byrne 2000). Finally, the root mean square errors of approximation (RMSEA) provides sample-size adjusted estimates indicating good fit when smaller than 0.05. Path coefficients allow us to understand the extent to which predictor variables influenced Level 1 academic outcome and were fully standardised and therefore comparable within the model.

Sample size

It is recommended that the number of participants to the number of parameters is estimated at the ratio of 10 to 1 (Kline 2005). Our hypothesised model had 23 parameters with a sample size of 388. This yielded a ratio of 17 to 1, which is thus acceptable.

Results

End-of-year academic performance was significantly correlated with gender, measures of academic engagement and UCAS points (Table 2). There were also significant associations between all other pairs of variables except UCAS points and IT engagement. It can be seen from Table 2 that the highest association (r = .439) is between Level 1 academic outcome and prior educational attainment.

Table 2: Pearson product-moment correlations for the study variables

The model in Figure 1 shows the direct and indirect effects of the independent variables on Level 1 academic performance. The model resulted in a good fit without modification indices (Table 3 shows that TLI and CFI were above 0.95, Chi-square was not significant, and RMSEA was less than 0.05 [Byrne 2000]) and so can effectively account for Level 1 academic performance. Based on the findings of our model, the following paths were non-significant: gender to Level 1 outcome directly and gender to attendance. These were annotated with a dashed line. Since the model is exploratory and theory-dependent, non-significant effects have not been eliminated (Abd-El-Fattah 2006).

Figure 1: A structural equation model of standardised path coefficients for student attendance, IT engagement, prior educational attainment, gender on level 1 academic achievement. Dashed lines indicate non-significant path coefficients

Table 3: Goodness of fit indices of models

Direct effects are when one variable directly relates to a second variable whereas indirect effects are where one variable relates to another variable through its influence on a third variable. Figure 1 highlights both the key direct and indirect effects of the independent variables. Table 4 shows the total effects, direct effects and indirect effects of the independent variables on Level 1 academic outcome with 95 per cent bias-corrected confidence intervals as generated by the AMOS 6.0 programme through the bootstrapping technique (Arbuckle 2003). This process allows us to effectively estimate indirect effects and their 95 per cent confidence interval. This table allows us an estimation of standardised indirect and direct effects of the independent variables on Level 1 academic outcome.

Table 4: The standardised direct and indirect effects of antecedent variables on Level 1 academic outcome

PC = Path coefficient, CR = Critical ratio for each path coefficient, this is obtained by dividing the estimate by its standard error (using a significance level of 0.05, any critical ratio that exceeds 1.96 in magnitude is said to be significant), LB = Low boundary of bias-corrected confidence interval of bootstrapping, HB = High boundary of bias-corrected confidence interval of bootstrapping. Values shown in italic font indicate non-significant direct effects.

Discussion and implications

The difficulties that some students have with engaging in their academic work are often exacerbated by the new study skills required in higher education, such as note-taking and academic reading (Sutherland et al. 2002, Drew 2001). The model was significant and so the factors involved require further consideration. The model supported previous research (Devadoss and Foltz 1996; Woodfield et al. 2006) in showing that engagement, as measured by attendance at lectures, was an important factor in predicting Level 1 academic performance. Not only was it important through directly influencing exam score but also through indirectly through the influence that attendance has on the commitment to VLEs. Such environments are a growing feature in the undergraduate pedagogical structure, and issues that address attendance are paramount. Since we know that simply recording attendance increases both attendance and academic performance (Shimoff and Catania 2001), new approaches to understanding the reasons that our students do not attend, and to facilitate attendance, are essential.

Prior academic grades influenced Level 1 outcome both directly and indirectly through attendance. This was not unexpected (Plant et al. 2005, Devadoss and Foltz 1996), but the suggestion that prior educational attainment had little impact on the relationship between attendance and performance (Romer 1993) was not borne out. It was important to include previous academic performance in the model such that we could obtain the relationship between the engagement variables independent of previous achievement.

A number of authors have confirmed the finding that gender is related to degree achievement (Simonite 2003, Richardson and Woodley 2003) and that female students perform better in exams generally than male students (Gatherer and Manning 1998). Our model shows that gender influenced academic outcome via previous academic performance. It would appear that gender is associated directly with academic performance to a greater extent when younger than when at university Level 1.

Limitations

While this work has thrown interesting insight upon student engagement and the interrelation of some of the key factors that influence student performance, it should be considered in the context of some of the key limitations. This research only used students from whom we were able to derive a measure of prior academic success as defined by the UCAS tariff. A minority of students, often mature students, arrive through different courses that do not provide an easy measure of previous academic success. Further work with this population would be a useful addition to this work. Moreover, there may have been differences between the students who withdrew from their studies and those who continued, and, so, future work might also investigate this.

Engagement with virtual learning materials was taken from a Level 1 course on research methods, which all students took. Whilst it provided the best source of data and utilisation of the StudentCentral facility, it may be that engagement patterns could have been specific to this course. Moreover, lecture attendance and the extent to which students engaged with virtual learning materials were specific indices of student engagement and, as mentioned earlier, simply counting the number of study hours does not capture the complexity of students’ study patterns. As such, perhaps future research should include multiple indices of student engagement in order to enrich the data. It would also useful to apply this model with a less ethnocentric and female sample.

However, overall this work has provided important intuitions and an innovative working model that has separated some of the key factors that combine to influence Level 1 academic outcome. It has also provided a fertile context for further, more detailed investigation.

References

Abd-El-Fattah, M. (2006) ‘Effects of Family Background and Parental Involvement on Egyptian Adolescent’s Academic Achievement and School Disengagement: A Structural Equation Modelling Analysis’, Social Psychology of Education, 9 (2): 139–57.

Arbuckle, J. (2003) AMOS 5.0 Update to the Amos User’s Guide, Chicago, Ill.: SPSS.

Bollen, K. A. and Long, J. S. (1993) ‘Introduction’, in K. A. Bollen and J. S. Long (eds), Testing Structural Equation Models, Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, pp. 1–9.

Borland, M. and Howsen, R. (1998) ‘Effect of Student Attendance on Performance: Comment on Lamdin’, Journal of Educational Research, 91 (4): 195–7.

Byrne, B. M. (2000) Structural Equation Modelling with AMOS: Basic Concepts, Applications and Programming, Englewood Cliff, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Centre for Higher Education Research and Information and London South Bank University (2005) Survey of Higher Education Students’ Attitudes to Debt and Term-Time Working and Their Impact on Attainment, London: Higher Education Funding Council for England and Universities UK.

Devadoss, S. and Foltz, J. (1996) ‘Evaluation of Factor Influencing Student Class Attendance and Performance’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 78 (3): 499–508.

Drew, S. (2001) ‘Student Perceptions of What Helps Them Learn and Develop in Higher Education’, Teaching in Higher Education, 6 (3): 309–31.

Department for Education and Skills (2003) The Future of Higher Education, Cm 5735, London: The Stationery Office.

Gatherer, D. and Manning, F. C. R. (1998) ‘Correlation of Examination Performance with Lecture Attendance: A Comparative Study of First-Year Biological Sciences Undergraduates’, Biochemical Education, 26: 121–3.

Hoskins, S. L. and van Hooff, J. C. (2005) ‘Motivation and Ability: Which Students Use Online Learning and What Influence Does It Have on Their Achievement?’ British Journal of Educational Technology, 36 (2): 177–92.

Hunter, S. and Tetley, J. (1999) ‘Lectures: Why Don’t Students Attend? Why Do Students Attend?’ HERDSA Annual International Conference, Melbourne, 12–15 July.

Joint Information Systems Committee (2004) JISC Strategy 2004–6, Bristol: Joint Information Systems Committee. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=strategy_jisc_04_06. (Accessed 24 July 2008.)

Kember, D. (2001) ‘Beliefs About Knowledge and the Process of Teaching and Learning As a Factor in Adjusting to Study in Higher Education’, Studies in Higher Education, 26 (2): 205–21.

Kirkwood, A. and Price, L. (2005) ‘Learners and Learning in the Twenty-First Century: What Do We Know About Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Information and Communication Technologies That Will Help Us Design Courses?’ Studies in Higher Education, 30 (3): 257–74.

Kline, R. B. (2005) Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modelling, 2nd edn, New York: The Guilford Press.

Lamdin, D. (1996) ‘Evidence of Students’ Attendance As an Independent Variable in Education Production Functions’, Journal of Educational Research, 89 (3): 155–62.

Longhurst, R. J. (1999) ‘Why Aren’t They Here? Student Absenteeism in a Further Education College’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 23 (1): 61–75.

Neeleman, J., Bijl, R., and Ormel, J. (2004) ‘Neuroticism, a Central Link Between Somatic and Psychiatric Morbidity: Path Analysis of Prospective Data’, Psychological Medicine, 34: 521–31.

Plant, E., Ericsson, K., Hill, L. and Asberg, K. (2005) ‘Why Study Time Does Not Predict Grade Point Average Across College Students: Implications of Deliberate Practice for Academic Performance’, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30 (1): 96–116.

Richardson, J. T. E. and Woodley, A. (2003) ‘Another Look at the Role of Age, Gender and Subject a Predictors of Academic Attainment in Higher Education’, Studies in Higher Education, 28 (4): 475–93.

Rogers, J. R. (2001) ‘A Panel-Data Study of the Effect of Student Attendance on University Performance’, Australian Journal of Education, 45 (3): 284–6.

Romer, D. (1993) ‘Do Students Go to Class? Should They?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7 (3): 167–74.

Schuman, H., Walsh, E., Olson, C. and Etheridge, B. (1985) ‘Effort and Reward: The Assumption That College Grades Are Affected by Quality of Study’, Social Forces, 63 (4): 945–66.

Shimoff, E. and Catania, A. C. (2001) ‘Effects of Recording Attendance on Grades in Introductory Psychology’, Teaching of Psychology, 28 (3): 192–5.

Simonite, V. (2003) ‘A Longitudinal Study of Achievement in a Modular First Degree Course’, Studies in Higher Education, 28 (3): 293–302.

Sutherland, P., Badger, R. and White, G. (2002) ‘How New Students Take Notes at Lectures’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 26 (4): 377–88.

Woodfield, R., Jessop, D. and McMillan, L. (2006) ‘Gender Differences in Undergraduate Attendance Rates’, Studies in Higher Education, 31 (1): 1–22.

UCAS (2006) The UCAS Tariff, Cheltenham: UCAS.

Universities UK (2001) Spending Review 2002: Investing for Success, Universities UK’s Submission, London: Universities UK.

The authors

Carl Walker gained his Ph.D. in Health Psychology at London Metropolitan University. His research has been focused around mental health, service user involvement and action research. As a senior lecturer at Brighton University, his research and teaching have focused around social inequality and mental distress. It has also taken on an educational component with a specific interest in social transitions in higher education.

Stephanie Fleischer is a lecturer in the School of Applied Social Science at the University of Brighton with the integrated role of a student support and guidance tutor for first-year undergraduates. A key part of her role is to help students with their transition to university, to improve retention and to understand factors affecting withdrawals. Her research interests are in student retention, first-year student experience and student finance.

Sandra Winn was a principal lecturer in social policy at the University of Brighton from 1988. She was a quantitative research methods specialist who had a specific interest in education policy and higher education. She made a major contribution to our understanding of the effect of introducing fees into higher education on students’ well-being and lifestyle. In particular, she evidenced the problems created when students have to undertake paid work in order to survive. Sandra recently passed away.

Competent communicators: explaining an international communication exchange

Helen Jones, Manchester Metropolitan University

Abstract

In times of profound social change, we need to find ways of managing the learning process. The case study discussed in this paper provides one example of a social and interactive form of learning. Prioritising pedagogical values of collaboration and communication, the model described provides for an international exchange of ideas, resources and viewpoints based on constructivist learning theory. From a small-scale project to one that now supports students from seven universities in the UK and the USA, this example shows how a simple idea can become an enjoyable and productive learning experience for students and staff alike.

Key words:

collaboration, communication, e-learning, international, competencies, interaction

Introduction

‘In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.’ (Hoffer 1978: 101)

As C-SAP prepares for a conference on the virtual university in 2009, few can now doubt or deny that education and communication systems are going through processes of profound change. Indeed, Dale Spender has suggested that we are witnessing the democratization of authorship due to the Internet (1998), and, since Russell’s now famous declaration of the ‘no significant difference phenomenon’ (Russell 1999), the question of whether e-learning can make a difference compared to traditional learning has also changed. We no longer focus exclusively on the comparison between distance and campus. Today, we have moved to consider how e-learning can make a difference to retention, sustainability, employability, managing large cohorts and enhancing the pedagogic design of the curriculum. Although we still differentiate between learning and e-learning (Joint Information Systems Committee [JISC] 2008), the past ten years have seen the mainstreaming of cyberspace activities, from checking emails and buying groceries from the online version of our favourite supermarket to listing friends on Facebook and dancing in Second Life. We should not wonder that our students expect some element of e-learning as part of the diet of their educational experience. It is through a notion of ‘added value’ that e-learning is now assessed in terms of its potential to innovate and enhance. This article considers the use of technology to create learning opportunities that develop competencies whilst engaging the students in high-level thinking about their subject content. Once criticised by a fellow member of staff as a ‘dumbed-down, pen-pal excuse for a learning exercise’, this paper provides an overview of the pedagogic principles underpinning what has become the International E-communication Exchange, which has provided over 1,000 students with an international element to their undergraduate studies.

Developing competence

The notion of competence places a strong emphasis on abilities relating to information and communication technologies (ICT) and so Russell’s original question can be refocused to ask whether e-learning can make a difference to support the development of competencies. The Bologna Declaration of June 1999 began a series of reforms to create a European higher education area by 2010:

'The process originates from the recognition that in spite of their valuable differences, European higher education systems are facing common internal and external challenges related to the growth and diversification of higher education, the employability of graduates, the shortage of skills in key areas, the expansion of private and transnational education.'  (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf, accessed 11 July 2008)

Together with the Copenhagen Process, the aim is to ensure lifelong learning and social mobility which promotes ‘employability, active citizenship, social inclusion and personal development’ (http://ec.europa.eu/education/copenhagen/index_en.html). In 2005, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Academy and the JISC published a ‘strategy and implementation plan for supporting higher education institutions to develop and embed e-learning over the next 10 years’ (HEFCE Strategy for E-learning 2005), which points towards a future of mainstream acceptance of e-learning into the provision of higher education. Indeed, it has been argued that ‘Transformed institutions will have responded to the needs of the e-society driven by “Generation-Y” students [ . . . ] and also up-skilled staff and innovated “behind the scenes” in order to transform departmental and institutional processes’ (JISC 2008: 9).

Recognition of competencies is at the heart of this process and can be defined as grounded in knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable individuals to react with spontaneity in uncertain contexts. Traditional distributive education with the ‘sage on the stage’ expert imparting wisdom is yielding to a more collaborative model of learning where e-learning is a useful tool in encouraging competence development (see Table 1). E-learning has been seen as an efficient mechanism to facilitate distributive learning, but distributive learning assumes too simple a pedagogy–a pedagogy that sees education as knowledge transfer. If education really was this simple, then the lecture would have been superseded by the printed book in the fifteenth century. Understanding e-learning as a two-way communicative mechanism allows for a collaborative approach. In comparing the two models, differences are evident in the role of the teacher, the student, the theory of knowledge, the learning model, the use of ICT, how students are assessed and the outcome of the learning experience.

Table 1: A comparison of distributive and collaborative learning models

Many advocates of distributive approaches to higher education argued that courses should be taught in fixed locations, with fixed timetables. However, the broadening geographic distribution of the student cohort demands flexible learning environments that fit with their work patterns, and the growth of ICT means that universities which do not embrace e-learning are in danger of being left behind as increased global competition. Figure 1 shows how the eighteen- to twenty-year-old population declines after a peak in 2010–11. This age group will begin to decline significantly, reducing the traditional student target population and further challenging any university that refuses to engage with changing social forces.

Figure 1: Eighteen to twenty-year-olds from 2006-7 to 2028-9. Source Office of National Statistics and Government Actuary's Department (2205 based projections, published in August 2006), adjusted by the Department for Education and Skills for academic years.

The virtual learning environment (VLE) in higher education has been seen variously as a boon to managing increased cohort sizes or ‘another thing to do’, depending on perspective. Many at the forefront of e-learning are already predicting the ‘Death of the VLE’ (Stiles 2007) but it was adopted by many as a distribution tool, placing documents and lecture notes onto the system for students to download. But the potential of the VLE is in collaboration and not as a mere ‘document dump’. VLEs cannot be treated as repositories we can send our lecture notes to and then run away for the semester. Building some element of communication into online collaborative work will help to meet the demands of modern employers for graduates with socio-communication competencies if we use VLEs for more than mere content distribution.

The International E-communication Exchange: a case history

The notion of online communication within a collaborative framework designed to enhance students’ competencies was the starting point for what is now known as the International E-Communication Exchange (IEE). The origins of this innovation came out of focus-group work conducted with students at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in 2003 on why so few students took advantage of international exchange schemes for study. It came as little surprise to find that they were deterred by lack of money, domestic responsibilities, or both, which hampered their opportunities to travel.

Concern for this constraint on their learning opportunities stayed with me until one day in late spring 2004 when I decided to try to make contact with a university with a similar teaching and research focus as my own and to enquire about establishing a pilot project. I contacted a criminologist at the University of West Florida (UWF), Dr Julie Kunselman, who, together with another colleague from UWF (Dr Kathy Johnson) worked with me to design a small-scale pilot, planned for launch in the autumn semester of 2004.

Together, we designed a six-week ‘insert’ project which could be used in any criminology/criminal justice programme to supplement the students’ usual diet of lectures, seminars and associated study. The programmes followed by students in the UK and the USA had common themes, but they were not identical in content or presentation. The students’ only common experience was in relation to the project.

The pilot was rolled out twice with feedback from students being incredibly positive. The design was simple: students were paired with a partner from the other university; email addresses for each pair were shared; and each week the tutor would email a topic that the students would be expected to discuss. At the end of the six-week process, students wrote a report on the process and attached examples of what they felt to be their ‘best’ email exchanges.

Some students thought the e-communication project would be an easy task, likening the process to a ‘pen-pal’ relationship. However, Student A described feelings of concern about the project: ‘My US partner and I started off with a brief email introduction so we could get an idea about each other and that took a bit of the fear away. Not wanting to show myself up I feel I’m doing more reading than I would normally.’ There was a clear indication that students felt they were representing their university (and maybe their country) and so had to work hard to do well: Student B emailed her instructor and signed off by saying ‘I have some “impressing” to do, and that means extra reading to prepare.’ The reality of this first stage of the model therefore went beyond the mere ‘getting to know you’ stage to a more structured approach to preparation (Jones et al. 2005: 167).

The two pilots had also provided a space for the academics involved to get to know each other on a ‘virtual’ basis, but we did not meet in reality until after both pilots had been completed: we were directly modelling what we expected our students to do in terms of online communication. After meeting in late 2005 at a conference (to give a joint paper which had been written by email exchange), we decided the next step was to see if the project was scaleable by inviting more partners into the scheme and moving from a simple email mechanism to a more sophisticated VLE basis (Jones et al. 2007). Three more universities in the USA joined in late 2005 (including the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who continue with us to this day), and, in the UK, the University of Brighton and Westminster University became partners with MMU and UWF. So it was, in 2006, that the project was transported to a WebCT platform and expanded to involve seven universities and a total of 375 students in the USA and UK. A grander project deserved a grander title, and so it was renamed the International E-Communication Exchange.

Describing the developed model

The IEE provides an alternative mechanism of learning and assessment to the traditional paradigm of lecture/seminar and essay/exam. No longer paired partners exchanging emails, the IEE consists of numerous learning sets, each comprising of a maximum of ten students. The first scaled-up IEE taught us that learning sets needed to be large enough to be sustainable if a couple of members are silent or absent but small enough to allow debate without ‘message overload’. The relationship between writing and the construction of meaning within the IEE is markedly different from that involved in constructing an essay as it is frequent, ongoing and more real to life, capturing ‘thinking in flight’ (Cowan and Crème 2007: 101). The act of writing has been described as a process of ‘knowing’ ‘a method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it’ (Richardson 2000: 923). Most of our students will never write another essay after leaving university but they will need to communicate with confidence in online environments in many careers. Employers require graduates who are able to demonstrate a competency with ICT that goes beyond that of the school-leaver. This requires a professional ability to clearly articulate complex concepts in a concise and digestible form. In the IEE, students were:

'required to read the messages posted by other students, giving them the opportunity to be reflective readers of each others’ work. Furthermore, students were reading and writing for a dual purpose: they were managing the competing demands of working towards an assessment and also responding to their fellow group members. To succeed individually they had to collaborate'.
(Jones 2007)

The 2007 IEE welcomed another partner institution, California State University Fresno and secured funding from C-SAP to evaluate and develop the project¹. Further dissemination about the project was made through a number of conference papers, and the UK partnership was strengthened through being able to meet to develop the project further. A series of roadshows to further disseminate the model resulted in Glasgow Caledonian University becoming a partner in 2008.

A snapshot of the current position of the IEE shows that in 2008 a total of 488 students from seven universities (four in the UK and three in the USA) were registered for the exchange. The largest cohort was from Brighton (n = 154) and the smallest was from Glasgow Caledonian University (n = 18). The model used in the previous year was reproduced with students allocated to small discussion groups (average of ten students per group) and required to discuss three specific topics during the course of six weeks. The basic requirements were that two messages be posted each week, with each message consisting of not more than 300 words, as we are mindful of tutor and student overload in reading so many postings (Fox and MacKeogh 2003). Over 6,000 messages were posted but even the students who were not posting as many messages as others were gaining from the process as the VLE tracking function showed that postings from other students and resource materials were being read, podcasts were being listened to and videos of tutors were being watched, so it could be argued that they were having some form of (albeit limited) learning experience.

Assessment: dumbing down or challenging?

Assessment takes the form of a short reflective essay to which students attach their ‘best’ (self-judged) messages, one from each topic. You might assume that this is too easy and a form of dumbing-down: surely all students will score very highly on such an assessment? Assignment guidelines, marking criteria and intended learning outcomes are all clearly identified in the paper-based student handbook and in online guidelines. However, a range of abilities emerges, and the assessment grades range from a lowly 10 per cent (where there was a gulf between the claims made by the student in the essay and the actual level of participation) to a respectable 74 per cent (see Figure 2). The key question is whether marking is fair in ensuring that marks awarded reflect the standard appropriate to the level of the module.

Figure 2: Grade bands for MMU students 2008 (n = 69)

In fact, there was little difference in grades for this assessment compared to other assessments taken by this cohort of students which confirms Russell’s findings mentioned earlier (1999). This should be seen as a positive aspect and one which can usefully counter any criticism that a communication project is ‘dumbing down’ educational quality. Feedback from students consistently makes mention of the demanding nature of the project. Transparent assessment criteria, together with a reflective essay, which takes the form of a self-assessment tool (Cowan and Crème 2007), means that when students receive their grade, it comes as no surprise, and the feedback usually mirrors what the students have said about their own performance. Students learn from the experience, even if they fail: ‘engaging students in identifying their own assessment criteria is helpful because it gives them ownership. Establishing what the criteria should be early on means that everyone is clear about what is being judged’ (Times Higher Education, 27 March 2008).

The IEE model shows the interrelation between knowledge, skills and action. It encourages students to ‘become a critical thinker [ . . . ] to engage in critical thought with her peers and colleagues within the discipline, as well as recognise the relativity of knowledge’ (Brockbank and McGill 1998: 53). Students reflect on their own knowledge base, often challenging their own assumptions and beliefs and reading further on the specified topics to be sure that the message they post is seen as credible by their peers. Learning is often partial because the tendency is to seek out information that supports our own viewpoint. This model took students out of that comfort zone and demanded that they challenge themselves as well as others. Their ICT skills, which are enhanced through the IEE, are a fortunate by-product of a wider set of critical thinking skills and communication competencies set within an international framework.

Conclusion

Of course such a model cannot suit all students, but no one ever said that the lecture/seminar, essay/exam model was perfect either. There is no single suitable paradigm for learning. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. What is important is that we make space within our curricula to offer forms of learning and assessment which are more suited to the student of the twenty-first century. The IEE is a social and interactive form of learning which aims to support the development of different competencies. The student learns together with others within a small online learning set in mutual discussion of a topic. In the IEE model, the structure provides for an international exchange of ideas, resources and viewpoints based on constructivist learning theory which requires active engagement, collaboration, time management and self-organisation. Communicative learning is supported by this e-learning model to create opportunities for authentic learning through social interaction. It is not merely a ‘pen-pal excuse for learning’ but a rich and imaginative form of learning.

References

Confederation of EU Rectors’ Conferences and the Association of European Universities (no date) Bologna Declaration on the European Space for Higher Education: An Explanation. Online at: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf (accessed 11 July 2008).

Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (1998) Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education, Buckingham: Open University Press.

European Commission (2006) Copenhagen Process. Online at: http://ec.europa.eu/education/copenhagen/index_en.html (accessed 11 July 2008).

Cowan, J. K. and Crème, P. (2007) ‘Peer Assessment or Peer Engagement? Students As Readers of Their Own Work’, Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 2 (2): 99–119.

Fox, S. and MacKeogh, K. (2003) ‘Can eLearning Promote Higher-Order Learning Without Tutor Overload?’ Open Learning, 18 (2): 121–34.

HEFCE (2005) Strategy for E-Learning. Online at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_12 (accessed 11 July 2008).

Hoffer, E. (1978) In Our Time, New York, NY: Morrow Quill.

JISC (2008) Exploring Tangible Benefits of e-Learning: Does Investment Yield Interest? Newcastle: Northumbria University.

Jones, H. (2007) ‘Distinctive Dialogues: The International E-communication Exchange’, Learning and Teaching in Action, 6 (2): 9–11. Available online at http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/ltia/issue13/jones.php (accessed 7 October 2008).

Jones, H., Kunselman, J., Johnson, K. and Wowk, M. (2005) ‘Communicating Across the Atlantic’, Issues in Information Systems, 6 (1): 163–9.

Jones, H., Johnson, K. and Kunselman, J. (2007) ‘Just Talking? Adding an International Dimension to Criminal Justice Teaching’, New Jersey Criminal Justice Educator, 40 (1): 7–9.

Richardson, L. (2000) ‘Writing: A Method of Inquiry’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, pp. 923–48.

Russell, T. (1999) The No Significant Difference Phenomenon: A Comparative Research Annotated Bibliography on Technology for Distance Education, Raleigh, NC: International Distance Education Certification Center.

Spender, D. (1998) ‘Dumbing Up or Dumbing Down?’ Keynote address, Communities Networking Conference, Melbourne, 27 February.

Stiles, M. J. (2007) ‘Death of the VLE: A Challenge to a New Orthodoxy’, Serials, 20 (1): 3–36.

Notes

1. For full report, see http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/resources/project_reports/findings/ShowFinding.htm?id=30/C/06.

The author

Helen Jones is a teacher, researcher, writer and activist. She has taught in universities in the UK and the USA and is currently employed at MMU, where she teaches on a range of criminology and criminal-justice topics. As well as researching on pedagogy, her interests include the issue of gendered violence and she is a co-author of the book Rape Crisis: Responding to Sexual Violence.

E-portfolio-based learning: a practitioner perspective

Julie Hughes, Principal Lecturer in Learning and Teaching, University of Wolverhampton

Abstract

The learning potential for e-portfolios is rapidly attracting attention in higher education. A recent JISC (2008: 5) publication on the effective use of e-portfolios stated that there was an indication from research and practice that the ‘use of these tools can promote more profound forms of learning’. This article will reflect upon how e-portfolio-based learning might be introduced and integrated into the curriculum. It will also consider the practical and pedagogic challenges of building e-portfolio-based learning and teaching capacity in students and staff in a school of education in a teaching intensive post-1992 UK university.

Key words:

e-portfolio, learning potential, building capacity

Why e-portfolio?

In 2004, I was invited to be involved in a pilot e-portfolio project in the School of Education at the University of Wolverhampton. I had worked with traditional paper-based portfolios in teacher education and training contexts for many years. I felt ready to engage with this emergent technology as I perceived the project to be a safe risk supported by a mentor I trusted. This supportive and mentored risk-taking is a model that I have used in successive years to support students and colleagues across the School of Education’s partnership. I was not, at this stage, experienced in using technology to support learning, and I would rate my previous technology skills as limited. I was digitally inexperienced but not digitally reluctant (Hartley et al. 2008). However, I had been given the opportunity in the previous year to attend a centrally funded technology retreat, and I had developed a VLE (virtual learning environment) topic – of which I felt quite proud at the time. Looking back, I can see that my use of technology at this point was little more than information push, albeit in a personalised and welcoming manner. I was, as Laurillard (2007: xv–xvi) identifies, simply and uncritically using ‘technology to support traditional modes of teaching [which were] nowhere near being transformational’.

I felt constrained by the structure of the VLE, and my limited technical knowledge did not allow me to be more creative and experimental as I tried to be in my face-to-face classrooms. Also, I didn’t have access to examples or models of creative and innovative use of the institutional VLE in 2004 and could not at that stage imagine how to ‘reclaim’ the digital space for collaborative and dialogic learning and teaching. My plan, therefore, was to ‘test’ if my face-to-face teaching practices and pedagogy could be transferred to a different digital context and to explore how the use of this newly available e-portfolio environment might enhance the learning experiences of the new teachers I was working with. The platform used, which was at this stage still under development, was PebblePad (www.pebblepad.co.uk). What appealed to me immediately was the student-owned nature of this space which could be personalised. I was aware of just how much reflective critical incident sharing was taking place on MSN within paper-portfolio groups, and I wanted to harness some of this. Of course, PebblePad was still an institutional tool, and access was granted through membership of a gated academic community. Four years later, the product has developed and improved in response to regional, national and international user feedback, and it is, in some ways, almost unrecognisable as the same product that myself and my PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education) group piloted four years ago. What has stayed the same is that it was always the pedagogy and not the technology that led in its implementation in curriculum. We are now in a position in the School of Education at the University of Wolverhampton to be able to claim that we have begun to embed not simply the technology within specific programs but also that dialogic teaching and learning cultures and practices are being adopted because of the modelling of team-based e-portfolio-based learning and teaching (Hughes, Lacey and Wise 2008; Hughes, Lacey and Purnell forthcoming). It is the development and cascading of an e-portfolio pedagogy which will be the main focus of this article.

Context for e-portfolios

The drivers for the development of e-portfolio software are well documented elsewhere (Beetham 2005; Ward and Richardson 2005; Richardson and Ward 2005). E-portfolio as a product emerged at a point when many UK higher education institutions were looking for a solution to the PDP (Personal Development Planning) challenge to meet the 2005 QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) deadline for implementation. In teacher education, the need was less pressing as professional courses already required the ‘evidencing’ of reflection and action planning to meet the professional standards. However, the danger with these established PDP activities is that they can be reduced to a form of performativity and that the reflection evidenced is more an act of review and report (Clegg 2004, 2005). As a paper portfolio assessor, I had engaged in formative feedback like many of my colleagues. I had also developed the use of dialogue journals in a paper format (Hughes 2005) whereby the group – and this included me as tutor – wrote and shared journals detailing the critical incidents of their week in practice. The group then wrote back to, onto and into the reflections of their peers to prompt future reflections. This proved to be a highly reflective activity, which the students stated to be beneficial in terms of developing their reflective writing and sense of self as developing teachers. This was one of the key areas I wished to build upon using the e-portfolio technology as I imagined PDP activities based around narrative, situated practices and community. The potential technology risk, therefore, was somewhat reduced because I felt confident in structuring collaborative reflective writing in groups. This is perhaps the first lesson learnt: consider the risk and the time that it will take to manage the risk before engaging with the new technology. New pedagogy, new module, new technology = high risk. This was new technology, known module, perceived same pedagogy = less risk.

Situating e-portfolio work

Yancey (1997: 4) writing about developmental portfolios in the USA identified that, ‘classrooms hospitable to portfolios center on partnership and collaboration; they foster active construction of knowledge, student reflection and self-evaluation, and community structures in which students and teachers work together as readers, writers, thinkers, researchers and learners.’

This was certainly the philosophy; perhaps idealism underpinned and influenced my intentions and aspirations. I had, however, had previous experiences, as a teacher and as an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) trainer in further education, of prescriptive and mechanistic evidencing of competences within a portfolio. I was aware that my students and colleagues may also have had this earlier portfolio learning experience, and I wanted to explore the online potential for e-portfolios to ‘evidence’ far richer multi-layered iterative stories of learning (Sutherland 2005) and of personal and professional development. Barrett (2005) has described the e-portfolio as story as a metaphor, and her work has explored the tensions of utilising an e-portfolio for assessment for learning and for assessment of learning (Barrett and Carney 2005). Any e-portfolio use and research must acknowledge and address this tension, and the development of ideas, theories and practices during the past decade illustrates the contested nature of what an e-portfolio is and what it is for. For it is ‘just a presentation. It is nothing more than an e-collection of stuff. The folio is the bit which suggests that it has been put together for a specific purpose’ (Sutherland 2007), which also has the potential to be a personal learning space.

Second lesson learnt: consider what e-portfolio means to you and does it mean the same as it does to your colleagues or institution? At one end of the continuum, it is an engaging presentation tool, a digital ring-binder without interactivity. This type of e-portfolio requires limited support and teacher intervention beyond developing the skills required of the learner to navigate the technology. The assessor and audience should feel a sense of familiarity and order as the digitised form conforms to paper-based norms. At its other extreme, an e-portfolio is a hypertext, montage representation of juxtapositioning and superimposition (Denzin and Lincoln 2005: 5). This representation presumes and demands an active audience able to negotiate the non-linear format. However, this is not to suggest that this form is without internal order. For it to succeed, it must have an awareness of its audience(s). A third lesson: we need to educate the audience(s) too. An assessor, moderator or external examiner new to e-portfolio may not find the evidence without support and instructions. As Laurillard (in Conole and Oliver 2007: 48) warns in her critique of the impact of policy and funding, ‘we scarcely have the infrastructure, the training, the habits or the access to the new technology, to be optimising its use just yet.’

The recent JISC publication, however has a different emphasis, and claims that an emerging consensus defines an e-portfolio as 'the product, created by the learner, a collection of digital artefacts articulating experiences, achievements and learning’ (2008: 6). The emphasis upon learner construction, selection and representation is vital. Cambridge’s work is pushing the field forward with his assertion that e-portfolios are ‘a genre and a set of practices supported by a set of technologies’ (2008). The genre of representation involves ‘collecting evidence in authentic activity, reflecting upon that evidence and interacting with feedback, re-contextualising and reassembling this within an interpretative framework and a set of tools’ (Cambridge 2008). As I enter my fifth year as an e-portfolio practitioner, this definition resonates with me as the set of learning and teaching practices afforded by the inclusion of a collaborative digital dimension within my teacher’s tool kit repertoire grows in complexity and depth over time and changes as its users find new ways to represent themselves. I am learning how to be an e-portfolio teacher by being an e-portfolio teacher and by learning from my learners and their stories told in multimedia format. The representation of self, or stories of self, told in a particular aggregation of artefacts is in constant flux and a constant becoming (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) as learners may draw on and add to their digital asset store ongoing and not only at a fixed point for summative assessment. E-portfolio-based learning and teaching make this journey more explicit when shared with an audience. However more fundamentally, the iterative archiving and networking opportunities suggest a challenge to more traditional models of learning and teaching as the emphasis is less upon the evidence per se as in earlier paper portfolios but is more upon the rationale, or narrative, that links the re-contextualised and reassembled evidence.

A warning and the fourth lesson learnt: one size does not fit all, and the exact nature of the blend should be carefully linked to context. E-portfolios do offer access to rich representations of self if the user has the skills, the infrastructure and access to the technology. Many of our students carry sophisticated technologies in their pockets which could be used to create digital stories, MP3 files and videos, for example. But some students do not have the tools, training or habits and need to be given access and time to develop this. Have you factored this into your use of e-portfolio-based learning?

Growth as a practitioner/researcher

At the end of the pilot year using the e-portfolio, I was invited along with my student Jane Edwards (Edwards 2005) to talk about our experiences at a Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA) event in London. This established a pattern of collaboration, and I have since presented with and written with my students (Hughes and Purnell 2008) as well as encouraging them to write about their e-portfolio learning experiences (Edwards 2005; Jepson and Wright 2006; Karim-Akhtar et al. 2006). Simultaneously, JISC-funded projects were exploring learners’ perceptions of technology, LEX (Creanor et al. 2006) and LXP (Conole et al. 2006), and my work found a theoretical framework which has allowed me to explore e-portfolio practices as open-ended, in-depth ethnographic interviews (Hulme and Hughes 2006; Hughes 2008). To revisit Yancey’s model, I have actively encouraged students to construct and deconstruct their own stories of learning and from practice in response to the feedback from tutor and peers and in light of their wider reading and research. Beetham and Sharpe (2007: 3) urge us as practitioners to acknowledge that ‘pedagogy needs to be “re-done” at the same time as it needs to be “re-thought”’ in a digital age. In the JISC publication, Effective Practice with e-Portfolios, a model of e-portfolio-based learning positions dialogue as central to the learning experience (2008: 9). This is, in my opinion as an e-mentor, the single biggest pedagogic challenge in higher education if we are to harness the potential in Web 2.0 technologies such as e-portfolio to develop ‘talking’ rather than ‘telling’ teaching and learning cultures as so many of our assessment regimes are linked to summative essay submission with little or no focus or value placed upon the formative process activity. E-portfolio based-learning is emerging as a powerful, cumulative and iterative challenge to earlier summative norms.

A fifth lesson learnt: if this is a shift to a dialogue-based model of learning and teaching, then time must be allowed for online orientation, socialisation and rapport-building – for both staff and students. Online communities don’t just happen: they have to be nurtured and supported, and this may need a shift in focus in terms of student contact time. Colleagues new to online learning need to be supported to move from a use of e-portfolio, which is on top of their face-to-face teaching, to a model where it is used instead of the face-to-face content – therefore embedded in the curriculum. In my mentoring role in the past, this has caused some disquiet as some colleagues mourn the loss of the face-to-face initially until they can see the benefit of the online community work. PebblePad contains a blogging tool which has been central to my work for the past three years. In all modules and at all levels from foundation degree to masters level, students have created individual blogs which are shared initially individually with the tutor. Once individual blogging is established, group blogging is introduced and is carefully structured at first with a series of relevant posts designed to engage and prompt responses. Blog writing, both individual and in a group situation, is viewed as a rehearsal or ‘warm up’ for later pieces of academic writing, functioning like Winter’s and Winter et al’s patchwork texts (1999, 2003) which:

'do have a linear development not unlike that of a narrative or an argument or a report, but they have to be read in a slightly different way, because they also have a ‘radial’ structure, not just moving forwards but working outwards from an initial point, assembling and editing together a variety of contrasting material, surveying a circular horizon of meaning in different directions. In other words, each piece makes its own point, as well as contributing to the whole, and the writers commentaries are just that – commentaries: even when they are placed at the end they don’t (necessarily or fully) form a conclusion and sum up everything which has gone before.' (Winter et al. 1999: 68)

This approach requires a shift from summative feedback to ongoing formative feedback and the facilitation of what Lillis (2001) describes as talkback rather than feedback. In this way, the addressivity of the writing and blogging shifts from the practice of the singular and monologic feedback of the tutor to a collaborative and dialogic engagement with the wider writing and blogging community. At the point of summative assessment, the selection and patchworking process can be made explicit through using an e-portfolio medium. The use of this approach has supported Foundation Degree students in their transition into the university, and its attendant literacy practices, and in the transition or handover between modules, tutors and years. It has also been used to support PGCE M Level students into collaborative critical incident sharing, which is then built into a summative presentation (text or multimedia) of their development as reflective practitioners.

A sixth lesson: one size does not fit all (again). Blending the use of e-portfolio must be sensitive to learning, teaching and assessment contexts. Some colleagues cannot imagine initially how an e-portfolio can be measured or assessed against a traditional paper assignment, and issues of equivalency need to be debated. It is important not to be seduced by what might appear to be style or new genre over substance and to return to the module or programme outcomes as the guiding principles to begin the debate.

It is also important at this point to return to the idea of reflection and reflective learning, which is so often coupled unproblematically with the term e-portfolio. Reflection is difficult. Yancey’s (1998: 20) articulation of reflection as both process and product problematises what this might mean in practice as, ‘while many of us advocate student-centred pedagogy, we are still struggling to see how to get the student into that center.’ Recent work in the International Coalition for e-Portfolio Research III (INCEPR) (http://www.ncepr.org), of which this work is a case study, have explored Yancey’s claims that:

'through reflection, we understand curriculum pluralized: as lived, as delivered, as experienced: it is in the intersection of these curricula that identities are formed: students exert the most authority in that intersection since they are the ones who inhabit the place; learning more about that place is a goal of reflection used for educational purposes.' (Yancey 1998: 202)

At a recent meeting of the coalition in July 2008, we were asked in small groups to conceptualise what integrative learning, encompassing Yancey’s pluralised curricula, might look like in relation to e-portfolio learning. We were guided in this activity by the framework developed by Cambridge (forthcoming 2008), the co-founder and co-chair of the coalition whose model drew upon the question asked by Yancey, ‘What kind of selves do our digital portfolio models invite from students?’ and Cambridge’s articulation of the possibility that our learners might inhabit digital ‘network and symphonic identities’ supported in part by Web 2.0 tools and activities. The School of Education’s response to this was to draw upon a pre-meeting activity which asked for a working definition of integrative learning. So, in our case study, it is as much about encouraging the integration of the parts that make up the person without making use of the term ‘the whole person’ as it is about how we encourage and value the representations of these multiple selves – student, worker, family member, community member, etc. Integrative learning is also rooted in the ongoing narrativising through blogging which is conceived as iterative and rhizomatic (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) in its connectivity and internal coherence for an individual. It is vital that the learning is ‘owned’ by the student rather than the institution and that key drivers for the use of e-portfolio are the genre principles outlined by Cambridge. What is an interesting development in the UK context is the recent CRA definition of the e-portfolio domain as a broad one which is, or which might be (2008). It is the what ‘might be’ which is so exciting for future e-portfolio developments.

Successes: what we did

Between 2005 and 2007, there was slow growth in the use of e-portfolios in the School of Education to support the types of e-portfolio-based learning outlined above. At this stage, the implementation and drivers were individuals with an interest in enhancement rather than curriculum or strategic interventions at school or university level. Thanks to a National Teaching Fellowship fund, I was able to grow and employ post-graduation PGCE students over two years to support the development of an e-portfolio culture in the school. This ‘grow your own’ approach has proved invaluable for the university as a whole as both of the former students now work full-time on blended learning initiatives in a central unit, the Institute for Learning Enhancement, supporting staff across the university. In the school, the need to support staff in their use of technology was growing in importance, and a part-time e-learning coordinator was appointed. However, there was limited debate at module or programme level about how the small-scale case-study evidence from the coalition work might be cascaded across larger programmes. In 2007, the decision was made during the revalidation of the PGCE for the post-compulsory sector to embed e-portfolio and critical-incident sharing as outlined above. Simultaneously, the foundation degree teams in early years services and supporting inclusive practice attended a School of Education-funded technology retreat, and both pathways have been revalidated with e-portfolio-based learning as a central activity.

The Higher Education Academy funded cross-university Pathfinder Project (2007–8) on ePDP supported two members of the primary team in their use of e-portfolio, and this has been embedded within a B.Ed. first-year module. The Institute for Learning’s (IfL) adoption of an e-portfolio application (REfLECT – the IfL version of PebblePad) for professional formation for all new teachers in the post-compulsory sector has advanced the plans for the embedding of PebblePad in the Certificate of Education in on-site provision and in ten partner colleges. We have been able to respond to these initiatives because I am seconded to the university’s CETL/CIEL (Critical Interventions to Enhance Learning). There is other smaller scale activity ongoing which it is hoped will be developed across module/programme teams in future years. Where there have been larger scale successes, it is because of a whole-team approach and buy-in. The PGCE and Certificate in Education activity will impact on at least 300 students and 50 teacher education staff and mentors this year and 150 foundation degree students and ten staff. Seventh lesson learnt: working with teams with management buy-in is the only real way to scale up activity.

In all up-scaling activity, capacity-building in colleagues has been a primary driver. As curriculum development and revalidation have driven the larger initiatives, staff were given at least a semester to plan the pedagogic interventions and to be mentored in their technology use. The use of piloting via the INCEPR case study has allowed for evaluation and reflection to inform the next stage. Engagement with coalition theoretical developments has allowed the pedagogy to lead the curriculum redesign with the use of the blogging tool as a central hub for reflections and artefacts from across a programme of study rather than a module attachment. Another important cross-fertilisation from the coalition was the use of pebblePALS, who were trained and supported volunteer peer mentors. Informed by La Guardia Community College’s model of a student-run e-portfolio centre, a group of PGCE students were ‘on duty’ for practical support weekly during the lunch hours in the social learning spaces. This proved to be popular and successful within the cohort and offers a model for development that recognises and draws upon the wealth of knowledge and skills of our e-portfolio learners. Simultaneously, the use of blog buddies was developed to support part-time students in their transition into the university. Year 2 FD students acted as blog buddies or e-mentors to the incoming year. Again, the reception of this student-focused initiative was overwhelmingly positive. Both initiatives are being further developed for this forthcoming year, and there are plans to support this both on-site and off-site in partner colleges through a volunteer group of Year 2 blog buddies. What I am identifying here as the eighth lesson learnt is the possibility of creating cultures in groups of learners that exploits their knowledge of e-portfolio-based learning and collaborative learning for the benefit of the current and incoming year. E-portfolio-based learning is modelled and articulated as cooperative, enquiry-based learning, which wants to, and seeks to, ‘give something back’ to e-portfolio and blogging communities. Grow your own!

Issues

This reads potentially as a great success story for eportfolio-based learning. However, all initiatives outlined above were/are externally funded short-term projects. The work in the School of Education would not have happened at the accelerated pace of the last two years without NTFS funding. Change can be terrifyingly slow in Higher Education, in comparison to Further Education, and technology innovation may be perceived as too high risk in a culture where retention and achievement are the drivers, not innovation and risk-taking to enhance learning. I would like to make the argument that eportfolio-based learning offers a powerful example of how issues such as retention and achievement can be addressed. In the example of the Foundation Degrees grades have improved across the cohorts and progression onto the full degree is growing yearly in the three years since eportfolio-based learning was introduced as a critical intervention. We also have growing evidence in the case study that eportfolio-based learning supports increased student confidence at crucial transition points – entry into year one, between years one and two on the Foundation Degree and from the PGCE into the workplace. Further work is required to explore the variables but we are aware from focus groups, testimonials and evaluations that it is the personalized experience that eportfolio- learning supports that is valued by our learners.

Future directions

We are a new field, and it is exciting. E-portfolio-based learning, teaching and assessment offer us the opportunity to explore the processes of learning with our learners for, ‘it is the processes of learning, the becoming, which may challenge the underlying academic ideology – that of being a something’ (Richardson and St Pierre 2005: 966–7). The creation of montage texts such as e-portfolios and blogs as dialogic texts that ‘presume an active audience [. . .] create spaces for give-and-take between the reader and the writer’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2005: 5). Blair and Takayoshi (1997: 364–6) articulate this as a shift from e-portfolio assessor to ‘user’ for ‘along with the blurring of the acts of writing and reading comes a similar blurring of the dichotomy of process and product.’ So, the tenth lesson learnt, aligning to Mayes and de Freitas’s argument that through the use of the Internet ‘we are beginning to witness a new model of education, rather than a new model of learning’ (2007: 13) is that there are challenging but potentially transformational times ahead for e-portfolio learners and teachers.

References

Barrett, H. (2005) ‘White Paper: Researching Electronic Portfolios and Learner Engagement – The Reflect Initiative’. Available online at http://www.taskstream.com/reflect/whitepaper.pdf (accessed 15 August 2005).

Barrett, H. and Carney, J. (2005) ‘Conflicting Paradigms and Competing Purposes in Electronic Portfolio Development’. Available online at http://electronicportfolios/portfolios/LEAJournal-BarrettCarney.pdf (accessed 15 August 2005).

Beetham, H. (2005) ‘E-Portfolios in Post-16 Learning in the UK: Developments, Issues and Opportunities. Report to the JISC E-Learning and Pedagogy Programme. Available online at http://jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/eportfolio_ped.doc (accessed 15 August 2005).

Beetham, H. and Sharpe, R. (2007) (eds) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-Learning, London: Routledge.

Blair, K. L. and Takayoshi, P. (1997) ‘Reflecting on Reading and Evaluating Electronic Portfolios’, in K. B. Yancey and I. Weiser (1997) (eds) Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, pp. 357–69.

Cambridge, D., Cambridge, B., and Yancey, K. (forthcoming 2008) (eds) Electronic Portfolios 2.0: Emergent Research on Implementation and Impact, Washington, DC: Stylus Publishing.

Cambridge, D. (2008) ‘Models of ePortfolio Practice: TLT Workshop’. Available online at https://admin.acrobat.com/_a738382050/p87097382 (accessed 13 July 2008).

Clegg, S. (2004) ‘Critical Readings: Progress Files and the Production of the Autonomous Learner’, Teaching in Higher Education, 9 (3): 287–98.

Clegg, S. (2005) ‘Evidence-Based Practice in Educational Research: A Critical Realist Critique of Systematic Review’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 126 (3): 415–28.

Conole, G., De Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2006) ‘JISC LXP: Student Experiences of Technologies’, final report of the JISC-funded LXP project, Southampton: University of Southampton. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/lxpfinalreport.aspx (accessed 10 November 2007).

Conole, G. and Oliver, M. (eds) (2007) Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Reseach. Themes, Methods and Impact on Practice, London: Routledge.

Creanor, L., Trinder, K., Gowan, D., and Howells, C. (2006) ‘Lex: The Learner Experience of E-Learning’. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/LEX%20Final%20Report_August06.pdf (accessed 25 September 2006).

CRA (2008) ‘E-Portfolios: Introduction’. Available online at http://www.recordingachievement.org/eportfolios/default.asp (accessed 25 June 2008).

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.

Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (2005) ‘Introduction’ in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edn, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage: 1-32.

Edwards, J. (2005) ‘Developing an E-Portfolio: A Personal View from the User Community’, PDP UK Newsletter, 4. Available online at http://www.recordingachievement.org/pdpuk/newsletter/Issue%204%20June%202005.pdf (accessed 10 October 2005).

Hartley, P. Currant, C., Currant, B. and Whitfield, R. (2008) ‘Defining “Generation Y”: Towards a New Typology of Digital Learners’. Available online at http://www.elp.ac.uk/downloads/Defining%20Generation%20Y%20Bradford.pdf (accessed 10 August 2008).

Hughes, J. (2005) ‘“I Didn’t Have a Voice Until I Joined This Group”: The Use of Dialogue Journals in the Education of New Teachers’, Journal of Vocational Education and Training 57 (1): 81–94.

Hughes, J. (2008) ‘Exploring Eportfolios and Weblogs As Learning Narratives in a Community of New Teachers’, Journal of International Society for Teacher Education 12 (1): 38–48.

Hughes, J., Lacey, C. and Wise, D. (2008) ‘Beyond Projects and Piloting – Embedding an Eportfolio in a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) – an Innovation Too Far?’ Enhancing the Student Experience. Proceedings of the Third International Blended Learning Conference. Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Press.

Hughes, J., Lacey, C. and Purnell. E. (forthcoming) ‘Using Blogs and Eportfolios to Support Reflective Writing and Epdp in Foundation Degree Students in a School of Education’, Proceedings of the European First Year Experience Conference. University of Wolverhampton, May 7-9 2008.

Hughes, J. and Purnell, E. (2008) ‘Blogging for Beginners? Using Blogs and Eportfolios in Teacher Education’, Sixth International Networked Learning Conference Proceedings. Available online at http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/PDFs/Hughes_144–153.pdf (accessed 3 July 2008).

Hulme, M. and Hughes, J. (2006) ‘Patchwork E-Dialogues in the Professional Development of New Teachers’, in J. O’Donoghue (ed.), Technology Supported Learning and Teaching: A Staff Perspective, Hershey: Idea Group. 192-209.

Jepson, A. and Wright, G. (2006) ‘PebblePad E-portfolio from the Student Perspective’, ESCalate, 6 (autumn). Available online at http://escalate.ac.uk/2962 (accessed 10 September 2006).

JISC (2008) ‘Effective Practice with e-Portfolios: Supporting 21st Century Learning’. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/effectivepracticeeportfolios.aspx (accessed 10 September 2008).

Karim-Akhtar, Y., Mahmood, K., Mcdonald, M., Mcdonald, T., McGuinness, S., Staunton, M., Purnell, E., Taylor, L. and Woodhams, J. (2006) ‘Pebble Power’, ESCalate, 5 (summer). Available online at http://escalate.ac.uk/2593 (accessed 5 July 2006).

Laurillard, D. (2007) ‘Foreword’ in H. Beetham and R. Sharpe (eds), Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-Learning, London: Routledge. xv-xvii.

Laurillard, D. (2007) Comment on the text 48b. Conole, G. and Oliver, M. (eds) (2007) Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Reseach. Themes, Methods and Impact on Practice, London: Routledge. 48.
Lillis, T. M. (2001) Student Writing: Access, Regulation, Desire, London: Routledge.

Mayes, T. and de Freitas, S. (2007) ‘Learning and E-Learning: The Role of Theory’, in H. Beetham and R. Sharpe (2007) (eds), Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-Learning, London: Routledge.

Richardson, L. and St Pierre, E. A. (2005) ‘Writing: A Method of Inquiry’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edn, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. 959-978.

Richardson, H. C. and Ward, R. (2005) ‘Developing and Implementing a Methodology for Reviewing Eportfolio Products: The Centre for Recording Achievement’. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/epfr.doc (accessed 5 September 2005).

Sutherland, S. (2005) ‘E-Portfolios: A Space for Learning and the Learner Voice’ in S. de Freitas and C. Yapp (eds), Personalizing Learning in the 21st Century, Stafford: Network Educational Press. 79-82.

Sutherland, S. (2007) ‘Perspectives: ePortfolios, Personal Learning and PebblePad’. Available online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/shanes_presentation.pdf (accessed 12 July 2007)

Ward, R. and Richardson, H. C. (2005) ‘Getting What You Want: Implementing Personal Development Planning through E-Portfolio’. Available online at http://www.recordingachievement.org/downloads/0504AugGettingWhatYouWant.pdf (accessed 28 September 2005).

Winter, R. (2003) ‘Contextualising the Patchwork Text: Addressing Problems of Coursework Assessment in Higher Education’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 40 (2): 112–22.

Winter, R., Buck, A., and Sobiechowska, P. (1999) Professional Experience and the Investigative Imagination: The Art of Reflective Writing, London: Routledge.

Yancey, K. B. and Weiser, I. (1997) (eds) Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

Yancey, K. B. (1998) Reflection in the Writing Classroom, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

The author

Julie Hughes has been exploring how the use of e-portfolios in higher education might support the development of reflexive collaborative learning and teaching cultures. Julie has used the e-portfolio system, PebblePad, since 2004 and has worked with groups of students from foundation degree to masters level in a school of education. Julie has also mentored individual colleagues and teams across the school and the wider partnership to experiment with technology in their teaching. Julie is a National Teaching Fellow (2005) and she is featured in the JISC (2008) publication Effective Practice with e-Portfolios.

Learning and teaching innovation: Creating an inspirational learning community

Alison Halstead

Abstract

This paper presents a strategic approach taken by a research-led institution to rebalance its mission and to recognise and reward staff engaged in research, learning and teaching or community engagement equally. The focus is on the learning and teaching aspects of the strategy and the decision to emphasise the importance of innovation in terms of permission to innovate, support for innovation and senior-management agreement and resources for innovation. At the centre of the plan is the establishment of a centre for learning, innovation and professional practice. The new strategic plan of which this is a part aims to create an inspirational learning community for all staff and students by 2012.

Key words

innovation, leadership, learning, strategy, reward, teaching

Background

Founded in 1895 and a university since 1966, Aston is a long established research-led university known for its world-class teaching quality and strong links to industry, government and commerce. With an outstanding international reputation for research the university is also regularly ranked within the top five in terms of graduate employment. Aston has gained sound accolades from the National Student Survey (NSS) as a small, friendly university that provides an excellent learning experience. In the 2008 NSS survey there was an 89 per cent satisfaction rating from our students that resulted in the current position of 11th in the UK. In 2008 the university gained 12th position in the UK, in the Good University Guide. Aston has always had a mission to be an:

‘International centre of excellence in teaching, research and consultancy, focusing on subjects of rofessional and vocational relevance in the sciences, engineering, business and the humanities’

In 2006 the university appointed Professor Julia King as the Vice-Chancellor of the university and her vision was for Aston to become an ‘inspirational place to work’. She realised that to achieve this vision there needed to be rebalancing of the mission to and reward staff engaged in or supporting research, learning and teaching or community engagement equally and the concept of a new balanced mission provided the focus for the development of a new strategic plan ‘Aston 2012’.

This balanced mission understands that excellent learning and teaching needs to take place within an environment in which staff are actively engaged in leading-edge research, scholarly activity and professional practice. This research underpins and enriches teaching and learning in a variety of ways: the curriculum of programmes is constantly being refreshed and enhanced by new research findings; specialist modules and dissertations in taught programmes often reflect the research interests and expertise of staff; students have the opportunity to learn about how knowledge is developed and created and to take part in the research process and thereby to develop valuable research skills; undergraduate and taught postgraduate students are invited to attend research workshops, seminars, staff presentations and guest lectures organised by the university, their school or subject areas. This sharing of knowledge between disciplines and research approaches is the way to create a dynamic learning community in which everybody is valued and their contribution recognised. The learning and teaching aspects of this approach are the key focus of this document. The paper is presented in three parts. The first part of the paper looks at the national priorities for learning and teaching and presents Aston’s position and potential with respect to these. The next section gives a brief review of the development of learning and teaching strategies over the last ten years within the university before going on to set out the various stages in the development of the new learning and teaching strategy ‘Creating an Inspirational Learning Community’ and the bringing together of staff from within the institution to form a centre for learning, innovation and professional practice to support the schools in the implementation and embedding of the strategy. The third section provides a short update on the progress that has been achieved to date, and the paper finishes with a personal reflective account of the meaning of innovation in the context of learning and teaching at Aston.

Introduction

Over the past five years, there have been numerous national developments within higher education (HE) which have had an impact on learning and teaching within the university sector. This section provides a context for learning and teaching developments at Aston.

Widening participation

The move to widen participation had a government target to enable 50 per cent of eighteen to thirty-year-olds to engage with HE by 2010. The latest participation figures indicate minimal overall growth in participation from 39–40 per cent over the eight years from 1999 to 2007.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) policy on widening participation provides a background context that matches the position taken by Aston:

‘Our aim is to promote and provide the opportunity of successful participation in higher education to everyone who can benefit from it. This is vital for social justice and economic competitiveness. Widening participation addresses the large discrepancies in the take-up of higher education opportunities between different social groups. Underrepresentation is closely connected with broader issues of equity and social inclusion, so we are concerned with ensuring equality of opportunity for disabled students, mature students, women and men, and all ethnic groups’. (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/widen)

Aston University has a diverse staff and student base. HEFCE figures show that 89 per cent of students starting full-time first-degree courses at Aston in 2005–6 came from state school backgrounds, and 57 per cent are from minority ethnic groups, with 46 per cent coming from the West Midlands.

Aston has an excellent reputation for widening participation and its outreach work with schools and colleges has enabled the initial recruitment and strategic decisions taken to ensure that the necessary support is in place to retain this diverse student body. For example, in 2006, a learning support centre was established. The success of this centre and other widening-participation activities such as peer mentoring, volunteering, personal development planning and preparing for placements can be evidenced by the very low (4 per cent) drop-out rate, as the 2005–6 Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data presented in the Guardian indicates.

The university has also engaged successfully with Aim Higher, the new Life-Long Learning Networks, and leads the regional National Gifted and Talented Youth Hub (NAGTY). All this excellent and innovative activity was managed through support service departments with support from teaching staff, and monitored by various hubs, steering committees and working groups through an annually agreed budget. This innovative range of initiatives did not appear to feed directly into the curriculum.

Employer engagement

Aston has always worked closely with industry and commerce, and, currently, about 80 per cent of students on programmes have placements. Research has indicated that students who have the opportunity to gain work experience during their programme of study in general obtain at least one degree classification higher than those without, as a result of which the new strategy aims to be able to offer all students work-based experience by 2012. The key recommendations from the Leitch report (2006) align well with Aston’s strengths and strategy. These are the need to:

• increase employer investment in higher level qualifications, especially in apprenticeships and in degree and postgraduate levels;
• provide more training in the workplace;
• raise people’s aspirations and awareness of the value of skills;
• introduce compulsory education or workplace training up to age 18 following the introduction of new diplomas and expanded apprenticeship route;

Aston has expanded its foundation degrees from 25 students in 2006–7 to 100 in 2007–8 and 350 in 2008–9. As a result of the development of these programmes, the university was successful in gaining £1.6 million from the HEFCE Strategic Development Fund for the purpose of setting up a foundation degree centre. There is considerable interest from employers, and the student numbers on these bespoke programmes is expected to reach 500 by 2010.

E-Learning

HEFCE has developed a ten-year strategy to integrate e-Learning into HE, ‘HEFCE strategy for e-learning’. The strategy is intended to enable all universities and colleges to make the best use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in their learning and teaching. The necessity of embedding learning technologies and e-learning appropriately to enhance student learning is a major challenge for HE institutions. It is a key component of the latest HEFCE strategic plan, 2006–11, and in the capital allocations announced in January 2008 e-learning is specified as one of the areas of national strategic priority for the use of the Learning and Teaching Capital Investment Fund over the period 2008–11. At Aston the schools have used two different VLE’s that staff have developed on an individual basis. Technical computing support is centrally available through Information Systems Aston (ISA) and an externally focused organisation Aston Media has provided the main support for the exploration of learning technologies. Schools with funding were able to contract Aston Media to develop learning resources. In 2005, HEFCE allocated funds to all HEI’s to support the development of e-learning activity and strategic plans. Aston received £157,000 and this was used for a variety of e-learning initiatives, the main one being a Centre for E-languages. At the same time teaching quality enhancement funds were deployed by central staff development to establish a Flexible Learning Development Centre (FLDC). The aim of the centre being to support staff interested in developing new approaches to delivery by providing small amounts of funding as well as a forum to share the emerging practice.

The FLDC was crucial to the aspiration to be offering modules and programmes by a much more flexible delivery tailored to individual needs. Many interesting projects have been conducted with real benefits to the subject group involved but much of the work has been at school level with occasional good practice days for wider sharing. There is real scope to both develop and deploy technology in learning and teaching but the existing resource is scattered within the university, between the schools, Interdisciplinary Studies, ISA and Aston Media and there are no regular forums to bring the expertise between these well qualified and talented groups of staff together.

Library and Information Services at Aston work closely with the schools and departments to support the staff and students through a range of electronic resources. They have readily integrated library resources and training materials into the VLEs through digitisation of book chapters and journal articles, and recently introduced a Library Matters module. They are actively involved in the current debate sponsored by JISC about the future of libraries.

Research and learning and teaching

Teaching at Aston takes place within an environment in which staff are actively engaged in leading-edge research. Research underpins and enriches teaching and learning in a variety of ways. For example, the specialist modules and dissertations in taught programmes often reflect the research interests and expertise of staff. Thus programmes are constantly being refreshed and enhanced by new research findings and students have the opportunity to learn about the research process and about how knowledge is developed and created. Undergraduate and taught postgraduate students are invited to attend research workshops, seminars, staff presentations and guest lectures organised by their school or subject areas. Within all programmes there are research components in various formats, from clinical research through to more traditional laboratory and library based research. Schools have strong links with employers and there are opportunities to undertake research projects within the work-based environment. Many module specifications include a "contribution of research" section. In line with the university’s approach there have been national moves to encourage universities to support ‘research-informed’ teaching. In October 2005, HEFCE announced the approval of “additional funding to support teaching informed research, for 2006-07 and 2007-08 to be allocated in inverse proportion to an institution’s research funding.” These funds were included within the institutional allocated teaching quality enhancement funds, for learning and teaching strategic plans. These monies will be used to initiate learning and teaching research projects in 2008.

Rewarding and developing staff in HE

Aston introduced ‘Teaching Excellence Awards’ in 2005 for both teaching and support staff. This was managed by central staff development who also offered new staff the opportunity to participate in a postgraduate certificate in teaching and learning. As a research-led institution, take-up of this programme was low, support from the schools was variable, and, in the five years from 2001 to 2007, of the 207 staff who initially enrolled, only 86 gained the award.

This section has briefly highlighted the five main aspects that impact on the student learning experience at Aston: widening participation, employer-led programmes, e-learning, research-informed teaching and rewarding and developing staff. There was a considerable amount of innovation in all of these areas, and a high level of commitment from staff, but there was also a generally held feeling that teaching was not as important and not rewarded in the same way as research.

In November 2007, the new strategic plan placed learning and teaching innovation as the first key objective seeking to become a nationally recognised Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching by 2012.

The next section looks at the university-wide agreement of objectives for learning and teaching and the establishment of a centre to lead the development of innovative curriculum, technical innovation, research and development of innovative practice in learning and teaching and employer engagement.

Towards a new learning and teaching strategy: creation of a Centre for Learning, Innovation and Professional Practice (CLIPP)

This section outlines the purpose and plan for meeting the strategic objective to become nationally known as a centre of excellence in learning and teaching by 2012 and to create an inspirational learning community.

University-wide objectives for learning and teaching

Discussions about the new strategic plan and the specific focus for the objectives of a new learning and teaching strategy took place over a three-month period between November 2007 and February 2008 with a variety of groups and individual staff and students across the university. Eight generic objectives were agreed by the senior management teams in schools and the executive in March 2008. In the new learning and teaching strategy, there are four focused on staff:

1. Promote creativity and innovation in curriculum design and delivery that supports the needs of a diverse student population and their employment needs.
2. Enable staff to support student learning and assessment through an effective use of e-learning technologies and appropriate pedagogic research.
3. Develop recognition and reward opportunities and career paths for learning and teaching.
4. Develop strong subject-led curriculum partnerships with our regional, national and international partners.

And four focused on students:

1. Enable all students to deepen their knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their achievement and employability.
2. Provide flexible and interactive learning opportunities within all programmes tailored to student needs.
3. Continue to enhance learner support systems to enable student achievement.
4. Provide a learning environment compatible with flexible delivery options to enhance student learning.

For these learning and teaching objectives to be achieved, there was a consensus that the following six aspects were needed.

1. Central leadership and coordination, working with the four academic schools and key support departments to support learning and teaching leaders within the schools and to provide the benefits of synergy across the institution.
2. A critical mass of innovative curriculum developers, researchers, technical innovators and professional practitioners within the schools that have clearly defined roles as learning and teaching innovators or champions.
3. Inspirational leadership and delivery reflecting the very best learning experience for the staff on for the PG Cert. This needed to be delivered in partnership with the schools and needed to illustrate the role of an academic practitioner at Aston. Work-based masters and doctorate opportunities would be validated for progression from the PG Cert along with transparent career paths to readerships and professorships in learning and teaching.
4. Support and resource for both internal and external dissemination of learning and teaching innovation and research to raise the external profile of Aston.
5. Income generation to support the development of the curriculum, innovation, pedagogical research and scholarship in learning and teaching.
6. Mainstreaming the innovative work of the widening participation task groups (learner support, student mentoring and volunteering, employability and placements) and the media and learning technology opportunities from Aston Media into the curriculum.

The strategic solution

Restructuring and leadership to form the new centre

It was agreed that staff engaged in student-facing work relevant to the development of innovative curriculum, delivery and assessment methods should be brought together. These included staff working in the outreach and widening participation office who were engaged in learner development and peer mentoring, staff from human resources engaged in delivering the postgraduate certificate, the whole of Aston Media and the foundation degree centre staff. In this restructuring, four of the five key areas crucial to development in learning and teaching (namely, widening participation, employer engagement, e-learning and developing staff) have been collocated in newly refurbished rooms and form the core of the new CLIPP. CLIPP has appointed four new senior academic department heads, all of whom report directly to the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Learning and Teaching Innovation. These are Heads of Curriculum and Learner Development, Media and Learning Technologies, Learning and Teaching Research and the Director of the Foundation Degree Centre. CLIPP will build on existing good practice by aligning staff engaged in developing innovative curriculum, delivery and assessment methods and forming learning and teaching research teams. The centre will provide leadership in technical innovation, pedagogical research and curriculum delivery and assessment as well as financial and practical resource to the schools to enable them to develop action plans to deliver the agreed learning and teaching objectives.

Buy-in and resource for innovators and champions from the schools

A second key aspect of the strategic solution was the creation of learning and teaching innovator and champion roles within the each of the four schools. These staff will work collaboratively with staff in CLIPP to share intelligence, innovative approaches and research-informed good practice. The plan was to seek at least three innovators or champions from each school within the three key areas of professional practice:

1. Curriculum and learner development.
2. Technology innovation.
3. Learning and teaching research.

The staff are responsible for developing the learning community in each school and department and will be led by the Associate Dean responsible for learning and teaching in the school. As a team, their role is the development, implementation and evaluation of the learning and teaching action plans and targets to meet the university-wide learning and teaching objectives.

All four executive deans of the academic schools agreed to fund the innovator or champion roles in their schools. It is envisaged that these roles will be within 0.2 and 0.3 of a total workload and that each role will be responsible for specific parts of the school Learning and Teaching Action Plan. Schools can change or renew the innovators on an annual basis depending on school priorities and identified areas of development.

A new committee structure

In line with the new balanced mission, the committee structure of the university has been reviewed and refreshed. The former Quality and Standards Committee, which had a quality enhancement sub-committee that dealt with learning and teaching, has been replaced with a major learning and teaching committee, with quality assurance, regulations, curriculum and learner development and learning technologies sub-committees. The latter two will be chaired by the CLIPP heads, with cross-university representation, including the school innovators and relevant staff from the support departments. All relevant funding streams, widening participation, teaching quality enhancement, employer engagement, research for learning and teaching will be planned and monitored via these groups to ensure that there is a transparent and strategic deployment that benefits the plans of the academic schools. They will also act as a focus to share practice and support the experimentation of new methods of enhancing learning.

Rewarding and developing staff

Responsibility for the postgraduate certificate has been transferred to CLIPP and is led by the Head of Curriculum and Learner Development. All executive deans have agreed that this programme is important for new staff, and the programme was redeveloped with school teams and revalidated in June 2008.

New promotion criteria to recognise and reward staff whose main focus was innovative curriculum development, academic leadership of programmes and research and dissemination of their practice were approved in February 2008. The Aston Teaching Awards were expanded in May 2008 to recognise the role that a wider group of staff play in delivering a successful university experience, including international student support and learner support.

The solution in practice: Progress to date

Establishment of CLIPP

CLIPP was initiated on 1 September 2008. Overall, there are 50 staff, all of whom are core-funded. In creating the centre, only one external appointment has been made – that of the Head of Curriculum and Learner Development. The Head of Aston Media became the Head of Media and Learning Technologies, and a previous National Teaching Fellow holder from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was appointed as the Head of Learning and Teaching Research. Research-informed best practice will be at the core of the centre’s philosophy and income generation for core business essential to sustainability. CLIPP will provide academic leadership on innovative and research approaches, specialist workshops, individual support, information on national initiatives, access to national networking and dissemination of good practice.

Appointment and empowerment of school teams

All schools appointed innovators or champions led by an Associate Dean. As teams they have developed action plans for their school for this academic year. The plans include the development of new curriculum, evaluation of formative and summative assessment approaches, and research projects to enhance the learning and teaching experience. Staff taking on these roles are crucial to the successful implementation and embedding of the new learning and teaching strategy. The appointed champions are all mainstream members of staff, based in their own schools, and have credibility in the areas of innovative curriculum and learner development, pedagogical research and the innovative and effective use of technology to support learning. They have a good working knowledge of learning and teaching practices and will be able to motivate staff, encouraging the sharing of current practice and working with staff in developing their practice and dissemination skills.

Making the new committee structure work

Committees only work if the staff on them are clear about their role and feel empowered. There is a current enthusiasm to ensure they become decision-making, practice-sharing bodies that enable staff to do things differently and more effectively. Advance use will be made of technology so that staff can simply sign off papers that are to be received with time being spent on major work plan targets as needed. The new committee structure is to be implemented in the first semester of the 2008–9 academic year. All terms of reference, work plans and progress are to be reviewed initially in December 2009.

Rewarding and developing staff

The new PG Certificate in Professional Practice has thirty new staff who have been asked to attend the programme by their academic schools. It is to be delivered through a series of residentials, seminars, action-learning sets, the VLE and an e-portfolio. Aspirations are high for the new programme, and the programme leader has expectations that over 90 per cent of staff will complete it in the first year.

The new promotion criteria have been implemented with the internal promotion of two professorships in learning and teaching, a readership and several senior lectureships. Such positive action has set out a clear agenda for the increased value placed on learning and teaching within the institution. The expansion of the Aston Awards has been well received by staff from whom there were a large number of applications from both individuals and teams. They were celebrated by a lunch hosted by the Vice-Chancellor in September 2008.

Leadership and innovation for learning and teaching at Aston (a reflection)

In setting out this account of the strategic approach taken by a senior management team in a research-led institution, focused on rebalancing the mission, I am mindful that there may be readers who feel there is nothing innovative here as many of these ideas have already been implemented very successfully within other HE institutions in the UK, but, if we reflect on what innovation means, I like this quote from John Adair in his book Leadership for Innovation:

To innovate means literally to bring in or introduce something new – some new idea, method or device. The novelty may, of course, be more apparent than real, for newness is a relative term. What is new to me may already be familiar to you. But innovation as a wider concept has certain important facets. In particular it combines two major overlapping processes: having new ideas and implementing them.
(http://www.johnadair.co.uk/4.html)

Innovation in the context of Aston is all about valuing and profiling the work and ideas of the teaching and support staff, to enable developments and promote and support ideas, in all aspects of the learning and teaching strategy, e.g., curriculum delivery, implementing and evaluating new learning technologies, rewarding staff, learning and teaching research that has a measurable impact on learner achievement.

Another Adair term that resonates with the Aston leadership team is ‘action-centred leadership’ in which there needs to be a clear sense of direction. At Aston there is a clear vision set out in the strategic plan. The restructuring has brought learner development together with learning technologists, curriculum developers and learning and teaching researchers. I am optimistic that the establishment of this diverse team will aid creativity and provide coherent central leadership and support for the school action plans and the more general implementation of the learning and teaching strategy.

An example of how this has worked in practice is the moving of the whole institution onto a single VLE in just six months. The academic departments have always purchased their own hardware and software for teaching, and this resulted in the university being on two different VLEs. Problems in October 2007 with one of the systems offered the opportunity to move the university onto one system with major benefits to both staff and students. In March 2008, I hosted a strategic review with senior managers in the schools and departments, academic staff and ISA of the current VLEs – the outcome of which was a desire and agreement to move to one VLE. A fully costed business case was approved by the University Executive. To ensure that the full benefits could be gained from the move and that there was full consensus and buy-in from all stakeholders, a VLE consultant spent three days with senior managers and users from schools and departments as well as technical experts from ISA in April 2008. An additional day was then devoted to the identification of the hardware, software and training needs of ISA staff. Short-term timescales and actions were agreed, and the new Head of Curriculum and Learner Development took over the project leadership. A graduate team of learning technologists were recruited to support staff, and additional resources were released as required.

The system went live at the start of September 2008, and optimism is high. The reason for such a quick and effective implementation was senior management support and resource, single project leadership and the creation of a diverse team from the schools and service departments who were aware of local need. Anywhere, anytime, anything support is also readily available matching the highest expectations of the users. For Aston, this approach is new and therefore innovative. It also has the benefit of demonstrating alignment from the senior management to action on the basis of the needs and aspirations of staff.

This is only the first step in initiating change and recognition for the excellent learning and teaching that goes on at Aston. Not all the steps will be the right ones, but, collectively, we need to be robust enough to tell each other when the direction is not right but confident enough to give things a go. And perhaps above everything it should be fun!

About the author

Alison Halstead has worked in industry, at Brunel University, Coventry University, the Open University and Wolverhampton University. At Wolverhampton, she gained and led a £4.5 million Centre of Excellence in Learning and Teaching and in 2005 she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for her innovative curriculum development and academic leadership. She is currently the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Learning and Teaching Innovation at Aston University and recently became one of the first Senior Fellows of the Higher Education Academy.

Reflections on active learning and active citizenship: Using a writer’s workshop as a dissemination event

Sylvia Ashton, Philip Dixon, Rebecca Johnson, Adrian Lee, Richard McCarter, Mike McManus, Liam Mellor, Joel Miskin, Lizzie Walton, Gary Taylor

Abstract

Active Learning/Active Citizenship (ALAC) was a three-year project concerned with producing multimedia materials to assist in the teaching of citizenship in higher education. The major outcome was a website containing a range of multimedia resources on citizenship. As part of the dissemination activity, the ALAC team held a whole-day workshop, where the participants were invited to join with them in exploring the utility and functionality of the site with the aim of producing a jointly written journal article. This piece describes the activities of that day and suggests this method as a useful and innovative dissemination tool.

Key words:

citizenship, politics, multi-media, dissemination, education

Introduction

Active Learning/Active Citizenship (ALAC) is a project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as part of its fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning 5 (FDTL) activity. The management of the three-year project was based in the Faculty of Development and Society at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), but the development work was shared with the Politics Department at the University of Lincoln.

The overall aims of the project were to:

• develop resources and approaches that integrate the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and multimedia involving the use of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and open and flexible approaches to learning;
• trial, evaluate, refine and embed the resources and pedagogical approaches for the teaching and active learning of citizenship and political literacy with students on courses in education studies, social policy, politics and teacher training;
• promote both active learning and active citizenship among students;
• disseminate the outcomes of the project to create wider awareness and understanding of, and also engagement with, both resources and approaches within the partner institutions and across the HE sector.

It was envisaged that the outcomes would include enhanced student autonomy and independence in the study of citizenship, increased levels of active community involvement and improved quality of critical thinking. This would come from improving teaching and assessment practices through an increased awareness and understanding of the potential afforded through the integration of ICT and multimedia to enhance the student learning experience. The main aim of the project was not to produce an online course or a set of videos but to develop pedagogical approaches that integrated the use of ICT and multimedia by means of a bank of flexible and reusable resources.

Figure 1:

The main visible outcome of the project was the website (http://extra.shu.ac.uk/alac/), the first page of which is shown in Figure 1. It is organised into the three themes of social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy, and within each stream there are two case studies which contain a variety of rich media resources. Figure 2 shows the second level of the site, concerned with a single case study within which there are a further set of resources. In this particular instance, they are Word documents containing web references to be used as part of a student-led activity.

Figure 2:

The site does not contain a course or module on citizenship but, rather, a set of resources that can be used by teachers or learners in whatever way is appropriate for them. As the underlying pedagogy of the project was that learning is an active process, the artefacts in the case studies require some interaction with the material, since they tend to pose questions rather than supply answers.

The team had formulated a dissemination strategy which included the usual dissemination vehicles of conferences and publications and was designed to achieve a hierarchy of goals addressing specific audiences using a diversity of means. The overall purpose of the dissemination was to achieve positive and sustainable development in the teaching of citizenship in higher education by promoting awareness, understanding, change and action. The recent report on project dissemination for the Carrick Institute in Australia (Southwell et al. 2005) has highlighted a number of concerns over the effective dissemination of educational projects worldwide. Sharing this concern, we recognised that there was also the possibility that new avenues of dissemination would appear during the life of the project, and we wanted to take advantage of these, if and when they arose.

The opportunity materialised of using an interactive workshop as a means of disseminating the project through our work with the Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP). We had previously used a group approach when writing a journal article based on the work of the project, and we decided to explore this avenue as a means of disseminating the work of the project. We thought that the exercise of writing a joint article based on the experiences of the group when they were exploring the ALAC site might yield a different type of output than the usual dissemination conference. In particular, since it would actively involve all participants in the whole process, it seemed to fit in with the underlying pedagogical approach of the project. We were interested in seeing whether the joint writing workshop would provide a different and perhaps better output for disseminating a project than the conventional conference workshop.

The workshop

In April 2008, a small group of participants from higher education, lifelong learning, further education and the Higher Education Academy attended a workshop supported by SWAP to reflect upon a new website on active learning and active citizenship (http://extra.shu.ac.uk/alac). Rather than use the event simply to display the website, the authors of the site designed a dissemination activity in which the participants were asked to work through a series of activities to produce the substantive content of this article.

Gary Taylor explains the ALAC site to the group and introduces them to the next task

There were three stages to this workshop:

1. Initially we asked the participants to tackle the issue of defining citizenship both individually and as a group.
2. We then asked the group to explore the ALAC site and, while doing this, to write 100 words on how they might or might not use the resources.
3. There was a group discussion, which was recorded, transcribed and used as the basis for this article.

When the initial draft of the article was completed, we sent it to all participants for their comments and incorporated any necessary changes in a final version. Thus, the article reflects the shared views of the workshop group. In working through these issues, each member of the workshop contributed something unique to the discussion and to the future development of the ALAC project. As the group was meeting for the first time, no shared understanding had been formed, and interactions between the members sparked and explored new ideas. This article attempts to capture at least some of the richness of the debate and to provide an example of how the dissemination of projects can be approached using a collaborative writers’ workshop.

What is citizenship?

The participants were asked to reflect upon their own understanding of citizenship and to consider the potential value of the ALAC site as a resource that could be used in teaching. The dissemination activity began by asking the participants to provide as many definitions as they felt necessary on the nature of citizenship and to record these definitions on sticky notes. The only stipulation was that no one sticky note should contain more than one definition. This was stated to encourage participants to think in terms of ‘sound bites’ or ‘bottom lines’ rather than to provide a long series of definitions operating on a variety of layers. Here are some examples of the definitions provided:

Citizenship is:

• having responsibility in/for your society (Phil);
• a feeling of duty to the whole, pride (Sylvia);
• understanding how our actions impinge on others (Liam);
• empowering for individuals, families, communities of place and/or characteristics (Adrian);
• recognition, equality, respect, understanding, engagement, participation in civil society (Joel);
• an obligation to attempt to understand each other (Lizzie);
• anything related to the person next to you – the neighbour, the school, the person that has been knocked over in the street or tripped on a pavement slab (Richard);
• reflecting on and contributing towards social change (Gary);
• knowing how political processes work and using them (Rebecca).

Most of the participants produced a variety of definitions. These were placed in a random order on a whiteboard.

The group was then introduced to the three themes explored in the ALAC site. These themes, borrowed and adapted from the Crick Report on citizenship education (QCA 1998), were:

• social and moral responsibility;
• community involvement;
• political literacy.

The first exercise was recording the responses of participants to the question "What is citizenship?" Here are some of the post-its on the whiteboard after being organised into the three streams of the project.

A whiteboard was then divided into three sections, one for each of the themes, and each participant was asked to consider where their own definitions would sit and to move their sticky notes accordingly. In so doing, the group now had a series of definitions related to the key themes of the ALAC site. Each of these will be considered in turn.

According to the group, social and moral responsibility can be understood in terms of balancing rights and responsibilities or in terms of the morals or virtues necessary for good citizenship. A number of the participants talked about the need to balance rights and responsibilities. It was pointed out that although citizenship is ‘based on fundamental rights, [it] also brings with it responsibilities towards other humans, the environment, etc.’ (Joel). Other ways of looking at social and moral responsibility concentrated on the term ‘moral’ rather than the term ‘responsibility’. Terms used to describe our moral responsibilities included duty to the whole community, respect, care and kindness. It was seen by one of the group as ‘understanding how our actions impinge on others’ (Liam). The above views on social and moral responsibility concentrate in the main on the social and moral responsibilities of individuals. For one of the group, however, social and moral responsibility was defined and transmitted by each community. It was thus described as involving the empowerment of individuals and communities, and it was argued that ‘citizenship involves choosing how to act politically, socially, culturally within a community – hence the need for education about its dynamics’ (Adrian). According to this version, at least some responsibility falls to those involved in education (at all levels) to draw attention to the importance of social and moral responsibilities and of operating effectively in our communities.

The second theme, community involvement, was seen to embrace our sense of identity as well as social and political activity. When approached from the perspective of individual identity, members of the group talked about a sense of belonging, and one pointed out that belonging to a group often involves ‘excluding others from the group’ (Sylvia). Mindset is clearly important. We are asked to consider the way we see others. One member of the group asked us to respect differences (Rebecca) whilst another felt passionately that community involvement is ‘about being open to each other and saying yes to new experiences’ (Lizzie). For others in the group, community involvement was about taking part in voluntary activity and pursuing projects that benefit the community. According to this view, active participation in the life of the community provides the individual with an opportunity to participate in social and political activity and, ideally, to make a positive contribution to society, especially on a local level.

Political literacy, the third theme, could be seen in terms of knowing how the political system works. Many of the group, however, showed that they were quite sceptical about the workings of the current system. One talked about the importance of democracy, human rights and global activity (Joel). Others urged us to be willing to scrutinise the messages we receive (Gary and Mike). For another, we needed to guard against the imposition of a particular set of values and to take part in ‘defining what the values of the whole will be, working out processes through which values are negotiated and imposed’ (Sylvia). Running throughout these comments is the sense that political literacy is not only about knowing how things work but also about engaging in some form of activity, whether this involves actively scrutinising the information we receive, actively engaging in defining and articulating key values and ideas or in active engagement in social and political change.

Although the group was asked to consider which of the three streams could be used to house their definitions of citizenship, it was acknowledged that some definitions either crossed over the boundaries between the streams or belonged outside of them. A number of definitions were included in the ‘none of the above’ category. One participant noted how citizenship is the opposite of ‘subjecthood’ and felt that it should take into account equality, respect, understanding and participation in civil society (Joel). Another felt that it rested upon an obligation to attempt to understand each other and that it should involve some ‘integration of lifestyles, ideas, cultures, beliefs, understandings’ (Lizzie). In both cases, the emphasis was on how we should avoid seeing ourselves as passive individuals and recognise the importance of respecting diversity and pushing for greater levels of equality between different sections of society.

Although these ideas stood outside of any one stream, they seemed to apply to varying degrees to all of the streams identified by Crick and developed by the ALAC site. This discussion related to the concerns about citizenship education expressed in the Ajegbo Report, ‘Diversity and Citizenship’ (Department for Education and Skills 2007) which suggested a new element in the citizenship curriculum called ‘Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK’. This would enable the citizenship curriculum to cover issues concerned with shared values and life in the UK. The addition of a fourth strand to ALAC, the focus of which is identity, would also recognise the tensions involved in the struggle to reconcile a celebration of diversity with a desire for social cohesion.

How can the ALAC site be used in the teaching of citizenship?

Having identified what they meant by citizenship and having placed these definitions into the streams used in the ALAC project, members of the group were then asked to work with the ALAC website and to identify some ways in which they could use it in learning and teaching. Each member of the group was given access to a networked computer and the ALAC URL. Rather than confine members of the group to any particular section, they were asked to explore the site and to write a short commentary of about 100 words on how they would use the resources and to note any particular omissions or flaws they encountered. This provided the ALAC group with an opportunity for evaluation of their work in a group setting, to review its possible application in learning and teaching and to gain some indication of what still needed to be done to strengthen the website.

The participants explore the ALAC site individually prior to the group discussion

There are two main case studies covered in the social and moral responsibility stream of the ALAC site. The first deals with student perspectives of their social and moral responsibilities. One member of the group noted that the case study provides generic or easily accessible moral dilemmas for diverse groups of students to discuss and provide an entry point to other issues. It was noted also that the materials on plagiarism are empathetic (they are not didactic or particularly accusatory) but could enable students to understand the issues and the way staff try to view potential acts of academic misconduct. This member of the group felt that these materials could help staff and students to appreciate the serious nature of plagiarism and to understand it as an issue of personal ethics and social responsibility. It was felt that the materials on electing a student representative would also be useful for both students and for staff because they illustrated the importance of the student voice (Adrian). Whereas the materials on student understanding of their social and moral responsibilities were seen very much in terms of activities that could be used in a classroom setting, the materials on the second case study on the environment were seen in terms of making use of different teaching methods.

One member of the group looked at two resources in the environment stream. The first provided a summary of a series of student projects on the environment, including projects on recycling, conservation and environmentally sensitive planning. The audience was asked to consider the relative merits of these projects and to order them according to priority. This resource called upon students to use their ability to compare and contrast and to question their values. The second resource, a piece of audio-visual material that recorded a session run by a colleague from SHU, Colin Beard, on environmentally sensitive design, showed how students were asked to touch and feel some products made from recycled material and to give their responses. This showed how touch could be used in teaching (Gary).

The community involvement stream contains case studies on work-based learning and widening participation. It was noted that the section on work-based learning contained some interesting and useful material on reflection (Adrian). The site contains some detailed evaluations of work-based learning that point to the benefits of voluntary activity for students’ senses of self and citizenship. Two of the participants suggested some interesting ways in which these resources could be developed. Drawing upon his wide experience of adult education, Joel suggested that it would be useful to include material on voluntary activity in the local area and to illustrate the diverse ways in which people choose to participate in their communities. He believed that ‘looking at and participating in the community can draw out, or should draw out, key issues regarding social and moral responsibility but also needs to be linked to political understanding and ideology’ (Joel). Phil, a lecturer in further education, saw ways in which work-based learning could be used to bridge the gap between the further and higher education sectors. In particular, he saw the possibility of offering university students the opportunity to work with further education students on community projects. Such initiatives could also contribute towards the ‘widening of participation of local young people in university life, enhancing the image of the institution’ (Phil). The reflections of Joel and Phil illustrate clearly that the value of this website lies not only in its specific content but also in the way in which the content and process can be applied in different settings. Having read the experience of students when engaged in work-based learning, members of the group started to think in terms of how students could benefit from community activity and how the wider community could benefit from student initiatives.

The section on widening participation also attracted some interest. Mike talked about how the reflections of students with disabilities raised issues that seemed to affect all students, and that, in many ways, they were identifying ‘common’ problems that cut across the higher-education sector. For Lizzie, who had contributed some material to the widening participation section of the site, it was not simply that students with disabilities participated in higher education but that students have opportunities for ‘effective participation’. The resources on widening participation (which include sections on the ‘politics’ of widening participation, the motives for students going to university and the experience of mature students) were valued in a different way by Rebecca. She believed that these resources would be useful for staff development, and she claimed that ‘staff developers offering courses on diversity could very usefully include extracts from the case study on diversity or show the video interviews with staff about widening participation.’ For many of the participants, it was important that staff in the higher education recognise the need to adapt their practice to respond to the needs of a diverse student population and to realise that in so doing we are likely to innovate in ways that will benefit all students.

The final two case studies are housed in the political literacy section of the site. These case studies deal with student perspectives on politics and international perspectives on citizenship. The student perspectives on politics draw in the main from a project conducted by staff and students at SHU and the University of Lincoln, in which students at SHU created some electronic sources for a module run at Lincoln. One participant thought that the project introduced ‘difficult concepts in manageable ways’ (Adrian) while another saw the potential to use the resource for Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) tutors involved in citizenship education. Indeed, it was noted that the resource ‘could form part of a session or course: always handy to have stuff that can be lifted and amended to meet the needs of a specific need or group’ (Joel). Although the content was seen in a favourable light, it was noted that there were some limitations to this part of the site. In particular, it was felt that this section of the site is heavily text-based and that this ‘might prove an obstacle for less literate users’ (Mike). This was supported by another participant who argued that ‘reliance on web sources is potentially quite limiting in a community setting with “non-traditional” learners, but the approach can be adapted’ (Adrian). A number of suggestions were made also for the inclusion of additional topics. In particular, it was felt that the section could benefit from material on political structures and political ideologies (Joel). Although the participants appeared to value what was there, it was recognised that other topics and methods could be used to enliven the material and activities debates contained in the site.

The final case study deals with international perspective on citizenship. Only one participant commented on this resource. The participant looked in particular at an audio resource on national identity in which students were asked to explore their views on national identity. It was noted that ‘national stereotypes appeared in the early stages of the interviews (especially on what it is to be Scottish) but how these were effectively undermined by a more refined understanding as the layers of questions unfolded’ (Gary). It was felt that this resource could be used not only to talk about citizenship but also provide a foundation for a discussion on the relationship between political and cultural identity. It was argued that this section could be developed further by initiating a small-scale research project in which students interviewed students from overseas studying in Britain and asking them to reflect upon:

• what they take to mean by citizenship;
• if they believe that they have a distinct national identity and how this differs from their experience of working with and living with students in Britain;
• whether they consider themselves to be ‘global citizens’ (Gary).

Once again, the resource sparked further questions. This would appear consistent with the general philosophy of the project, which has more to do with using a variety of methods to encourage people to think about citizenship than with providing definitive answers to any of the questions raised.

Where to next?

The dissemination activity concluded with a discussion on the next steps for the ALAC project. The group was asked to consider the possible value of the site and to consider what needs to be done to make the site useful to the group assembled. This discussion was recorded on a digital recorder and one member of the group took notes on a laptop.

A number of participants felt that it was important to provide some guidance on how to use the resources. One member of the ALAC team acknowledged that ‘we didn’t want to make it too prescriptive but we may have stepped back too far’ (Mike). It was argued that the ALAC site needed to provide some more guidance in terms of activities that could be used in lessons and seminars (Phil). One member of the group said that ‘hints but not prescriptive guides as to how to use it as a teaching material would be useful’ (Adrian). There was some discussion on what form this guidance should take, and it was suggested that an audio-visual guide through the site could be used to provide examples of how to use the materials (Gary). The ALAC team has since started to work on this, and an audio-visual guide has been added to each section.

The group also considered different audiences for the site. It was seen as a ‘useful introduction to citizenship for undergraduates’ (Liam). Participants believed that the site could be used with new or prospective students to introduce them to politics and to the local area (Joel and Adrian). Some participants noted that one of the defining features of the site was that it included the student voice (Rebecca and Gary) and that this was important even if it ruffled corporate feathers. Indeed, for one participant, it is ‘an absolute necessity to ruffle feathers’ (Joel). Another participant felt that the site could, with some revision, be used in the further education sector to engage students on the nature of citizenship and perhaps to change the image of citizenship (Phil). Participants recognised that citizenship education comes with a lot of baggage inherited from the National Curriculum and that this can stand in the way of effective learning and engagement with the subject matter. Sites like Active Learning/Active Citizenship, however, have been developed in the hope of showing some of the various ways that the Crick legacy can be developed.

Although the ALAC team was unable to make major changes to the website at this late stage of the project, the workshop did highlight some additions that were feasible and also indicated possible routes for further work and bids for additional funding. It also indicated potential ways in which the project might become embedded after the formal completion date and the cessation of the initial funding.

Conclusion

The dissemination activity was of value on a number of levels. Rather than use the activity to merely display the site, it was used to generate discussion, look for ways to improve the site and to contribute to the ways in which we understand and indeed teach citizenship in both further and higher education. The nature of the workshop meant that we were able to actively demonstrate the underlying pedagogy of the site as well as explore its content. By engaging in this activity, the group began to gel during the day as a thinking and writing circle. It is hoped that this process might lead to a greater engagement with the project outcomes than would have been achieved through a large-scale event. We talked about controversial issues and addressed a range of issues from the nature of democracy, the rights of minorities, what it is to be British, the responsibilities of the university in the community and so on. Collectively, we provided the thoughts and reflections necessary to write this article and to illustrate a method that can be used in dissemination activities. We talked about active citizenship and took part in active learning. Given the nature of the site we explored, it made perfect sense to approach dissemination in this way. Whether this method of dissemination secures greater use and ownership of the site than conventional strategies is not clear at present. However, where the aim is not just to present a product but also to demonstrate the process that lay behind it, this approach of using a small group in active production of an academic output such as an article may be useful.

References

Department for Education and Skills (2007) Curriculum Review: Diversity and Citizenship (Ajegbo Report), London: Department for Education and Skills.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1998) Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools: Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (Crick Report), London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Southwell, D., Gannaway, D., Orrell, J. and Chalmers, C. (2005) ‘Strategies for Effective Dissemination of Project Outcomes: Report for the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching, University of Queensland and Flinders University.

The authors

Mike McManus is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in the Applied Social Sciences division at Sheffield Hallam University. He is the Project Manager for the FDTL5 project ALAC. Sylvia Ashton is a senior lecturer at SHU. Philip Dixon is a lecturer at Thomas Rotherham College. Rebecca Johnson is Learning and Teaching Adviser, SWAP, Higher Education Academy. Adrian Lee is a lecturer at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York. Richard McCarter is Lecturer in E-learning at SHU. Liam Mellor is a graduate of SHU and worked on the ALAC project. Joel Miskin works for the WEA, Yorkshire and Humberside. Lizzie Walton is a graduate of SHU and worked on the ALAC project. Gary Taylor is Principal Lecturer in Social Policy at SHU and Associate Director of the ALAC project.

Editorial Paper

Anthony Rosie, Chief Editor


A word that often appears either directly or implicitly in this issue of ELiSS is ‘autonomy’ or one of its cognate terms. Occasionally ‘autonomy’ slides across the surface of an article or film shot, but, more commonly, it lurks behind the eyes or within the sinews of writers and speakers. In one sense this is no surprise – so much of social experience involves claims for autonomy and defence against oppressive practices that delimit a capacity to choose self-determining outcomes in social relationships. Yet in another sense its presence here is surprising: no contributor to this issue, whether commissioned or otherwise, set out to explore autonomy and its territory. Those commissioned were simply asked to write and report on the work on which they lead. Articles and audio-video material submitted for consideration for this issue simply did not seek to address autonomy. Yet the term and its application permeates our material.

In this issue our contributions bring out the dynamic of learning and teaching, both inside the university/college and outside. The movement may be circular requiring a radial model illustrated by Julie Hughes, or it may be a reflective monologue as shown in Steve Spencer’s interviews. There are of course other approaches in this issue.

We are continuing our practice of inviting either a Vice-Chancellor or P-VC with responsibility for learning and teaching to write on a topic from their institutional perspective. In issue one Dr Peter Noyes, Vice-Chancellor of Newport University, illustrated an institutional approach to e-learning. In this issue we are very pleased that Alison Halstead, P-VC Aston University, discusses the development of learning, teaching and innovation from her institutional perspective. She brings out the potential impact of key ideas on innovation from management studies for impact on learning and teaching in ways which are relevant for social scientists.

We also continue our practice of inviting national teaching fellows to write on their work. We are therefore pleased that Alison has written for us as she brings to her P-VC role experience as a national teaching fellow and senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Julie Hughes from Wolverhampton University shows how her national teaching fellowship work has spearheaded developments in e-portfolio activity both in her university and beyond. Julie brings out a personal project involving close research links with key partners extending into the US-based national coalition for e-portfolio research (NCEPR).

We introduce two further elements in this issue of ELiSS. We include a set of video interviews by Steve Spencer. Steve has worked with different groups all over the world and has contributed much to C-SAP’s programme. In these interviews Canadian women describe their experiences of immigration and living in a ‘new home’. We would like to receive more video interview offerings that offer both ideas for classroom practice and opportunities for reflection on critical social science issues. The ELiSS board is constituted to enable reviewing of video submissions. However, our approach does not simply take and require refereed submissions, welcome though they are. We will publish interviews, conference presentations, reports that we feel are of interest to the social science community.

We are pleased to publish the presentation Norman Sharp of QAA Scotland made to the 2007 C-SAP annual conference. Norman brings out many of the issues facing debates over enhancement and assurance and he brings out the contested nature of learning and teaching. This sits alongside our further addition in this issue. We publish an initial dialogue on critical pedagogy. Joyce Canaan and Sarah Amsler accepted the invitation to write a position piece on critical pedagogy to be submitted for comment and response from two educational developers. In their turn Janet Strivens and Ranald Macdonald took on the role of commentator(s) and we are pleased that two colleagues with such wide experience were able to contribute so helpfully to this issue.

Autonomy is not simply a concept in philosophy or social science. It permeates so many fields of inquiry with its emphasis on being able to make choices, and of course what constitutes good decisions. One starting point is that of A.L. Kennedy in her recent novel Day. On the opening page Alfred Day, former RAF gunner, only survivor from his Second World War crew is contemplating his future. It is 1949, the war is over but memories crowd in: capture and time as a POW, the crew who became the family to replace a brutal father, the married woman he met whose husband was still missing. Day notes that a man [sic] ‘had to imagine he’d got a chance at freedom, a bit of space. The interval between alternatives, that gave you space’ (Kennedy, 2007: 2). It is as ‘an interval between alternatives that give space' that we can consider autonomy.

It is perhaps surprising that relatively little of the important feminist analysis of autonomy has permeated learning and teaching discourses. Partly due to the rejection of the concept by some (Judith Butler), and partly to the constant treading over the Rawlsian ground, there has simply been less attention paid to work on self and autonomy, relational autonomy, autonomy as competence which has inspired the feminist recuperation of the 'project'. The work of Marilyn Friedman, Diana Meyers, Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stolja has simply had less impact than it should. If we are serious about considering learner choices and teacher actions in the widest political sense (Canaan and Amsler this volume) then we have to enter these debates. Strivens and Macdonald focus on the institution and the art of possibility including reference to what is possible but not as yet imagined – a key part of autonomy. That is important and it is what some of our project reports address. Helen Jones shows how localised work spread through positive buy in and engagement to become an international collaboration. Similarly, Mike McManus shows how collaboration across two institutions with major inputs from other contributors including colleagues outside the HE sector changed student learning. In short, both projects illustrate relational autonomy (Meyers, 1989, 1997; Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000; Friedman, 2003) where it is the purposive building of relationships and trust that enables change to happen. This is what is so difficult to achieve at both discipline and institutional levels. This is a theme which is picked up in Norman Sharp's video presentation where he shows how a policy level intervention (ELIR) can impact on institutional autonomy. He also shows how student involvement supports institutional plans, a practice that is regularly found in UK higher education.

To turn to the institution, there are different levels that we need to consider and any one issue of a journal at this early point will not automatically pick all these up. Nor should it - an online journal should create spaces for discussion including real-time audio that enable a discussion to take place over a period of time. It is something for the editorial board and readership to consider – how best we develop different institutional levels including contrasts, difficulties and even sheer misperceptions as opposed to the bland overall report we all have to produce from time to time.

In this particular issue Jim Moir and his colleagues, again from two institutions, as well as Carl Walker and his colleagues explore research into two specific initiatives: PDP, the first year undergraduate student experience and levels of engagement. We are pleased to carry papers which use different methodologies and which tackle a major issue for all of us – levels of student engagement and ‘switched offness’. It is the spaces between alternatives that form the image of the student world in these papers. Exhortations to change practice are important and appropriate particularly in the fast-changing world of digital interconnectedness that several contributors address. But it is not simply about changing practice. Such changes are at best minimal factors in bringing about change. This is a pity, given institutional and sector investment in such factors. Far more important is the notion of self, identity in all its forms no matter whether bathed in a postmodern light, or treated through the glare and hubris of late modernity; it is here that change occurs. So many initiatives and everyday requirements are rendered procedural rather than specific – it is of course easier to maintain control through proceduralism but says little about either values or care.

It is these double edged swords that Halstead, Hughes and Norman Sharp in their different ways address. Sharp brings out how an enhancement agenda can move beyond the procedural while Halstead shows how a combination of value development and decision making can create change. For all our contributors professional development is the glue that cements the relational elements. Such is the complexity of institutions that there will be different outcomes and different forms of achievement in different places.

If we consider the disciplinary level, then C-SAP is, together with the other subject centres, a significant player in the formation of disciplinary allegiances and pedagogic issues. ELiSS is a contributor to this work. We offer in the conventional sense an opportunity for contributors to argue and analyse pedagogy and curriculum in broad terms. But we also offer the opportunities of a web 2.0 environment, and, who knows, at least some reports in the near future of web 3.0 activity: increased machine reading/searching capacities, increased interoperability, intelligent applications so that the already considerable advances in ‘whole community existence’ such as that of ‘Second Life’ are extended. As a web 2.0 refereed journal we have ensured that in this first year we have included the audio and the visual. But put like that such a step sounds limited. What needs to happen is for readers and different networks of social scientists and others to use web 2.0 affordances – to engage with the debates that Joyce Canaan and Sarah Amsler and Janet Strivens and Ranald Macdonald offer, to bring forward through video discussion responses to the issues raised by Norman Sharp, and, of course to introduce something new and different that takes us beyond where we currently are.

Responses and ways of taking arguments forward do not have to be written and even in written form, they do not have to be 'conventional academic' in expression. There is surely a role for audio feedback so responses by mp3 are welcome, as are podcast and webcam recorded responses. Adobe Connect may well be highly suitable for this. As someone who attended an overseas conference recently, I recorded audio material for an ongoing second year course in the gaps between sessions based to some extent on responses to conference activity. I then read and responded to student online question responses; I felt course location and classroom ambience was of little importance for those particular few days. I was interested that a student apologised for missing a session but she felt she had to go on the demonstration against government bail out of banks. So at least in this case a rich environment was established - students felt able to combine political action with academic activity regardless of the physical presence of the tutor.

Web 2.0 usage goes much further than this – it is the networking facility to different forms of learning engagement that may be so powerful. The voices Steve Spencer enables us to hear are indicative of this. Again we become aware of the spaces between the interval. Here the interval varies from interviewee to interviewee in time, location and history. Thinking more generally about online developments, whether VLE-based, or mediated through another medium, there is little doubt that academics have colonised aspects of teaching in creative ways, regularly involving learners in this work. Julie Hughes is able to show us at first hand how this takes place. Her paper, with those of Jim Moir and colleagues and Carl Walker with colleagues raises questions for how learners mediate and distil experiences. So often the competence banner is raised in this regard, and while this may be helpful, what is more purposive is to consider the sort of competences that feminist philosophers have explored in their scrutiny of autonomy: including self-reading and self-direction as separate but linked competences (Meyers, 1989). 'Self-reading' may sound indulgent but how you read about yourself and how you engage with other's texts on you and with you is distilled into a competence in Meyers's work in ways which are progressive.

This suggests that C-SAP in sponsoring ELiSS is making a significant investment in promoting debate and cross-discipline pedagogic activity. We all know of the disciplinary boundaries as well as the allegiances. C-SAP activity in different fields including race and sustainability has specifically sought cross-disciplinary activity. We need to reflect this in the journal. Specifically, we need to encourage colleagues working in the many different branches of criminology to share experiences and write/speak/draw/represent for us.

ELiSS will remain a conventional academic journal in focus with regular refereed papers and project reports - that is the currency we all work with. ELiSS can also become a 'virtual commons' on the US model as a source for inquiry, debate, exchange. To achieve this distinctive outcome the journal has to work closely with C-SAP while maintaining its independence. It has to do more in terms of the conventional advertising approach: promotion through interest groups such as ALT, CETLs, JISC etc. But what is more important is that ELiSS becomes a site where social scientists from anywhere in the world can find approaches grounded in teaching and learning. Such approaches are often applicable to a wide range of issues.

ELiSS has so far related its two issues to C-SAP conference venues. We opened with an emphasis on Wales with a commissioned article from a Welsh university as well as an article from a social scientist from Wales. This issue is published as C-SAP heads for a conference in Scotland. We were delighted to receive a paper from colleagues at Abertay and Robert Gordon, and also to publish a keynote from Norman Sharp and QAA Scotland delivered at the first C-SAP conference.

2008 has seen two issues of ELiSS. In terms of numbers of articles and coverage the total for the year compares favourably with other online journals in their first two years. The organisation of the journal has gained considerably from Sophie Allen’s input. Sophie is the journal administrator based at Sheffield Hallam and employed by C-SAP. ELiSS has much to do to make others aware of its existence and the opportunities it provides. We hope that running two special issues in 2009 as well as one broad-based issue will help increase awareness and also act as a spur to colleagues to encourage others to read and to comment. We plan to release a special issue on e-learning edited by John Craig (University of Huddersfield) and Richard Pountney (Sheffield Hallam University) in April 2009, a special issue on internationalisation to follow up the November 2008 C-SAP conference. This issue is scheduled for June 2009 and will be edited by Malcolm Todd and Anthony Rosie. We will then publish a regular issue of the journal in November 2009.

However, we would like to develop a more sustained online dialogue with readers and contributors. The feedback section and commentary provides a starting point. We encourage readers and viewers to use this facility to feedback responses to individual articles, and to ELiSS more generally. But we particularly welcome developed responses leading to papers we can publish that either debate issues raised by contributors or take forward points raised in an initial way through the editorial. In the first issue the editorial outlined some aspects of cultural hybridity with reference to Europe and to Latin America, but much remains to be discussed: how valuable is the contentious term ‘hybridity’ and how can be either used or critiqued through teaching and learning? Similarly, in response to this second issue of ELiSS we welcome responses on autonomy. For instance, how can relational autonomy be promoted effectively and what difference can it make? What are the ideological issues and the implications for learner experiences for so often promoting independent learning rather than engaging with learner autonomy? Can relations between autonomy and learner autonomy be explored further, and what are some of the implications for teaching and learning? This debate is particularly relevant for distance education – see (Gokool-Ramdoo, 2008). We therefore welcome much more work on the field of autonomy.

We also welcome contributions on the purpose of the university and its role in the next twenty years. This is to take forward points raised by Norman Sharp in his rejection of consumerism, and Joyce Canaan and Sarah Amsler in their different contributions to critical pedagogy. Such contributions might well reflect on a point raised by Ranald Macdonald - Stephen Brookfield's view of Marcuse's concept of 'repressive tolerance'. Marcuse represents a key point in critical thinking and critical pedagogy. His point, as developed by Brookfield, is that the ordering of curriculum content as well as its mode of communication will display hidden preferences; it will position 'weaker' or more vulnerable discourses and people in less strong positions. How does the university order and organise its curriculum? How does it meet claims for inclusion and respect, particularly in the context of substantial increase in online learning and distance education? These are amongst the questions which we invite readers to respond to through papers, audio and visual responses. We also welcome requests to lead on particular topics in ways which will generate further research and will provide careful reflection on practice.

References

Friedman, M. (2003) Autonomy, Gender and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gokool-Ramdoo, S. (2008) ‘Beyond the Theoretical Impasse: Extending the applications of Transactional Distance Theory’, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol. 9, No. 3.

Kennedy, A.L. (2007) Day, London: Jonathan Cape.

Mackenzie, C. and Stoljar, N. (eds.) (2000) Relational Autonomy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meyers, D. T. (1989) Self, Society, and Personal Choice, New York: Columbia Press.

Meyers, D.T. (ed.) (1997) Feminists Rethink the Self, Boulder Colorado: Westview Press.

To view the videos please visit the video gallery

Whither critical pedagogy in the neo-liberal university today? Two UK practitioners’ reflections on constraints and possibilities

Abstract

This paper, based on the reflections of two academic social scientists, offers a starting point for dialogue about the importance of critical pedagogy within the university today, and about the potentially transformative possibilities of higher education more generally. We first explain how the current context of HE, framed through neoliberal restructuring, is reshaping opportunities for alternative forms of education and knowledge production to emerge. We then consider how insights from both critical pedagogy and popular education inform our work in this climate.

Against this backdrop, we consider the effects of our efforts to realise the ideals of critical pedagogy in our teaching to date and ask how we might build more productive links between classroom and activist practices. Finally, we suggest that doing so can help facilitate a more fully articulated reconsideration of the meanings, purposes and practices of HE in contemporary society.

This paper also includes responses from two educational developers, Janet Strivens and Ranald Macdonald, with the aim of creating a dialogue on the role of critical pedagogy in higher education.

Keywords

critical pedagogy, higher education, neoliberalism, popular education

Introduction

We are two academic social scientists committed to the idea that higher education (HE) can potentially play an important role in public life by informing, motivating and empowering progressive social action. However, we find that the universities in which we work are increasingly organised around rationalised economic logics that often mitigate against critical pedagogy. This situation is largely due to the radical restructuring and reconceptualisation of HE, in the UK and elsewhere, around logics of marketisation and commodification (Canaan and Shumar 2008, Hall 2007, WASS Collective 2007). As we discuss below, these now-familiar concepts have become blunt shorthand for explaining the contradictory processes creating both many new obstacles for critical education and also – by necessity – many new possibilities for initiating more progressive and collaborative practices. In light of this, we find ourselves increasingly asking how our work within, against and beyond the academy might contribute to broader projects of critical education for social change.

This brief paper outlines some tentative answers. We first explain how the current context of HE is reshaping our understandings of how to realise critical pedagogy in practice. We then consider how insights from both critical pedagogy and popular education inform our work in this climate. Against this brief backdrop, we consider the effects of our efforts to realise the ideals of critical pedagogy in our teaching to date and ask how this might go further if we more fully link classroom and activist practices as we have tentatively begun to do. We conclude by suggesting that doing so offers greater potential for facilitating a thorough reconsideration of the meanings and purposes of HE.

The state we’re in: neo-liberalising UK HE

Whilst British universities have never been fully autonomous from state control, until recently the State adopted the Humboldtian assumption that knowledge creation required relative autonomy and that independently organised academic research could help develop insights, which might elsewhere be applied to resolving practical problems (Lyotard 1984, Readings 1996). In the new context of the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, however, knowledge production is organised primarily around its economic relevance for facilitating processes of neo-liberal marketisation and commodification (Amsler 2007; Bourdieu 1998, Canaan and Shumar 2008). Accordingly, as universities are more accountable for their contributions to the growth of the ‘knowledge economy’ in national contexts, they are subject to greater state regulation and increasingly open to the influence of wider social forces, particularly market demands. We hence witness the ascendance of what Boron (2006: 149) refers to as the ‘bizarre idea that universities should be regarded as money-making institutions able to live on their own income’. As a result, ‘marketlike and market behaviors’ are now considered essential foundations for educational activities, which form part of an ‘academic capitalist knowledge/learning/consumption regime’ (Rhoads and Slaughter 2006: 103, 105; Clarke 2003; Shumar 1997, Slaughter and Leslie 1997).

These processes have had uneven effects on universities but largely have transformed educational contexts for students and academics alike. The rapid shift from elite to mass HE and the influx of more diverse students to an increased number of universities was not paralleled by faculty growth: average staff–student ratios have risen from 1:15 to 1:28 in twenty years. This contributes to work intensification, itself exacerbated by managerialist practices that deprofessionalise academics by greater surveillance of and accountability for pedagogical and administrative work and students’ results (Canaan 2008, Davies and Bendix Petersen 2005). In these conditions, many students also find they are work-intensified – particularly those who work at least part-time to pay tuition fees, the numbers of whom have trebled since New Labour introduced them in 1997 (Ainley and Weyers 2008, Callender 2003).

Furthermore, many academics and students working in universities face new constraints on academic freedom, both in response to ‘market pressures’ and to the post-9/11 ‘War Against Terror’. The latter, for example, has restricted the academic mobility of some lecturers and (particularly foreign) students (see, for example, Apple 2002; for a discussion of wider constraints, see Lewis 1999; Rhoads and Slaughter 2006; Shore and Wright 2000; Wright 2004; Rhoads and Torres 2006). Painted thus, the current conditions of HE in the UK appear grim. As Gibson-Graham (1996) notes, however, linguistic representations of a process or condition as a totalising, inevitable and completed script have a performative function: they potentially depict as ‘complete’ processes that are often incomplete, contradictory and more permeable to other forces and practices than their representation suggests (see also Trowler 2001). We thus suggest that in critically analysing the conditions of HE, educators should resist simply reproducing this depiction of reality. Whilst we recognise that we cannot help but at least partly internalise and be complicit with processes of neo-liberal restructuring that we ourselves experience (Canaan 2008, Davies and Bendix Petersen 2005; Holloway 2005; Rhoads and Slaughter 2006), it is nevertheless possible to contest the fatalist assumption, prevalent at least since the Thatcher era, that ‘There Is No Alternative’ to these trends (Freire 1996).

We aim to negate this damaging philosophy in both thought and practice, saying, as the Zapatistas did when initiating resistance to the neo-liberal restructuring of their land and lives in 1994, ya basta! – we’ve had enough! Like the Zapatistas and critical theorists before them, we recognise that this space of negation enables movement towards an alternative – in particular, towards creating more horizontally organised, collaborative and dialogue-based learning and teaching practices within HE. We also believe that the new permeability of the institution to the market offers academics new opportunities to forge alliances with progressive activists beyond the university (Santos 2006: 76). Rather than seeking a return to greater institutional autonomy or segregation for academics, we therefore argue that the notion of critical pedagogy should be expanded to include practices outside as well as within the university.

Critical pedagogy and popular education in and outside the university

Whilst the term ‘critical pedagogy’ is most often associated with the work of Paulo Freire (1996, 2000), it also encompasses a wider range of educational projects including ‘critical literacy’, feminist and other anti-oppressive philosophies of learning, and ‘critical-revolutionary’ and utopian pedagogies which are embedded in broader critiques of capitalism and authoritarian culture (see, for example, Chatterton 2007; hooks 1994; Shor 1999). There is considerable debate within and between these traditions of critical pedagogy, which is unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay (Coté et al. 2007). However, we note that our own inspiration comes from beyond the academy: we are rooted in and inspired by a Freirean ideal of conscientisation and by pedagogical principles of mutuality, dialogue and problem-based inquiry. We are also schooled in traditions of critical humanism that assume that the transformation of social consciousness is a necessary condition for political action that can be achieved pedagogically even in formal university settings. This approach to critical pedagogy has never been straightforward, for, while Freire encouraged reconsideration of his work for diverse purposes including HE and was located in a formal educational system, his ‘education for critical consciousness’ was articulated as a form of popular (literally meaning ‘of the people’ and metaphorically referring to transformatory political action) rather than academic education.

However, we argue that these projects are closely connected – and that attempts to make HE more politically transformative are intertwined with work to create institutions that are inspired by, and offer spaces for, more ‘popular’ forms of education. Popular education, according to an often cited definition, refers to education oriented towards advancing concrete struggles for emancipation and as such, is:

• rooted in the real interests and struggles of ordinary people;
• overtly political and critical of the status quo;
• committed to progressive social and political change.

In addition:

• Its pedagogy is collective, focused primarily on group as distinct from individual learning and development.
• It attempts, wherever possible, to forge a direct link between education and social action.

(Crowther et al. 2005: 2)

Under certain circumstances, it is possible that HE can be organised around some of these principles and practices (for example, in Paul Chatterton’s work discussed below). Even within the aforementioned constraints, it is possible to design socially engaged curricula, organise learning collectively and help students ‘read the world’ critically by ‘reading the [academic] word’ (Freire 1997). However, spaces for this type of education were always few and are now diminished. Most formal classes of students cannot be regarded as ‘communities of struggle’, and gross inequalities (particularly in terms of previous educational opportunities) continue to persist if not grow within and across UK universities (Allen and Ainley 2007; Quinn 2006). Whilst we might aspire to encourage students to become socially and politically engaged, we sometimes find that at best we can encourage them to strengthen their capacity for critical thinking and recognise that this might help them to take additional steps towards practical engagement in future (Kane 2007).

With regard to our own practices, Sarah’s work in teaching undergraduate social theory suggests the importance of looking beyond ‘pedagogical’ issues per se to working towards political changes in the organisation of learning itself. Although she designs her courses to be practically meaningful, politically engaged and dialogical, she has found it extremely difficult to facilitate dialogical learning or critical engagement with the social world in situations where class sizes have been extremely large. In such cases, while individual students reported that they had moments of inspiration or heightened critical awareness, in a broader sense, the courses contributed to legitimising the status quo. Students are ranked hierarchically in relation to each other and to standardised criteria of achievement; they learn a standardised body of knowledge for the purpose of accreditation, in ironic contradiction to many of the theories of knowledge they actually study; they are alienated in anonymity due to sheer numbers; and they are disciplined in mind and body by the architecture of the lecture theatre and the rationalised organization of learning time.

It is of course possible to soften, alleviate and adapt to these problems with pedagogical techniques, and Sarah works to do so. However, she has gradually come to realise that this belief – the belief that if we only tried hard enough we could make this work – is integral to maintaining the legitimacy of new managerialism (Canaan 2008; Davies and Bendix Petersen 2005; Shore and Wright 2000; Wright 2004). It also contributes to crediting a wider discourse that critical HE is either illegitimate or impossible. It thus seems increasingly likely that projects to transform HE exclusively from within the university may be counter-productive. Sarah has therefore been working increasingly to create informal spaces both inside and outside the university (such as reading circles, autonomous gatherings and a critical pedagogies working group) where critical connections between academic knowledge and social practice might more organically emerge.

Joyce’s contexts of learning and teaching are both similar and different to Sarah’s. She too faces large numbers of students – but only of classes of up to approximately eighty students, which she now holds in four sessions of twenty students each. She has also been able, with students and colleagues, to encourage her university to begin to soften the conditions of learning somewhat. Guided and legitimated by the example of the HEFCE-funded Warwick–Oxford Brookes collaborative ‘Re-invention Centre’, Joyce recently helped introduce a new learning space that students call ‘the beanbag room’. This space, with no ostensible front or back, mostly white walls, a moveable projector, no tables/desks and colourful beanbags (as well as one chair), enhances physical possibilities for more dialogical and facilitative work amongst students and between students and lecturers.

Nevertheless, like Sarah, within the classroom Joyce has found that most of her efforts are channelled into developing students’ critical academic literacies – their appreciation of how to read and write sociologically – and helping them use these to sharpen their understandings of the world. Students often say that modules are ‘eye-opening’ – a metaphor which seems to capture the way students claim to literally see more of the world and to use this vision to rethink prior understandings. But whilst the usage of this and other metaphors in module evaluations is gratifying, students may not easily relate what they do in class to praxis whilst at university.

In other words, as Joyce has noted elsewhere (Canaan, forthcoming), there is considerable hubris in assuming that academic learning alone will enable radical practice, especially given that education increasingly encourages students to give primacy to the rather different political project of developing skills of employability (Allen and Ainley 2007). If, as Merleau-Ponty noted, radicalisation is a gradual process (2003: 221), we must perhaps rethink the role that classroom learning might play in more complex human processes which are existentially indeterminate, then critical educators must be mindful that the effects of our work on future practices are inherently open-ended – a source of hope, we argue, rather than despair.

Within, against and beyond: new directions in critical education

We find, however, that we are tired – and not just by the sheer volume and intensity of work, or student numbers, or the neo-liberal logic impacting on our identities more fully than we often realise. We are also exhausted by the limits of our efforts within the university to encourage and enable students to move beyond ‘critical thinking’ to social and political engagement. We have hence begun to explore how the creation of institutions which are places for emancipatory education might be more fully realised if we work not just within and against the university, but also beyond it.

We are heartened by the experiences of those in other disciplines, particularly geography, who combine academic and activist pedagogy to help students engage with the world beyond the university. For example, Paul Chatterton (himself a member of TRAPESE, a popular education collective) uses Giroux’s notion of ‘border pedagogy’ to encourage students of ‘autonomous geographies’ to engage with anarchist ideas ‘not in a doctrinaire or overtly theoretical way, but as living ideas which would catch their imagination and can act as possible openings for how we might live more sustainable, just and equal lives’ (2007: 6). Students in this class were marked partly by engaging ‘with an outside group, campaign or event’ and then reflecting upon this experience using relevant literature (Chatterton 2007: 20). Some students were so enthused by the module that they encouraged Chatterton to set up an MA programme in ‘Activism and Social Change’ in autumn 2007.

Joyce has also been heartened by the experience of using popular-education insights in her own political work and by seeing the impact of bringing popular education into the university classroom. In spring 2007, for example, she invited a political theatre company, Banner Theatre, to perform a show about asylum-seekers for students taking her ‘Social Identities’ module. This production was preceded and followed by popular-education practices and was itself informed by such practices. Many students were powerfully challenged and inspired by encountering the experience of ‘the other’ in this way. Joyce has also been motivated by possibilities for progressive thinking and action enabled by the resources of C-SAP where she is now Sociology Coordinator. She has recently established a new Critical Pedagogy/Popular Education special-interest group within C-SAP that provides greater opportunities to link activities within, against and beyond the university. Through it, for example, Joyce was able to organize a weekend that brought together two of her students, Sarah, Paul Chatterton and other academic activists, Dave Rogers of Banner Theatre and two Venezuelans who regard the combination of critical pedagogy and popular education as a major contribution to their country’s explicitly socialist revolutionary process.

Such efforts, which have until recently seemed isolated, are beginning to take shape as part of a wider movement for educational and social change. At the 2003 World Social Forum, Santos proposed a popular university of social movements, resting explicitly on Freirean pedagogical practices and working ‘to educate activists and leaders of social movements, as well as social scientists, scholars and artists concerned with progressive social transformation’. Its aim is for this diverse community to ‘make knowledge of alternative globalization as global as [dominant] globalization itself, and, at the same time, to render actions for social transformation better known and more efficient, and its protagonists more competent and reflective’ (Santos: 2003). Indeed, this proposal articulates the sort of agenda that we hope it may be possible to develop for critical education in the UK today.

Implications

In order to advance this movement within UK contexts, we suggest that the university might be considered one of many interrelated sites of critical learning and socio-political practice rather than as a separate or superior one. From this, we also suggest that the possibilities for critical pedagogy within any institutionalised space are contingent rather than absolute and that we should be able to think creatively about where such spaces of hope might exist or be created and with whom we might possibly ally. As the normative visions, administrative logics and systemic forms of organising universities become increasingly incorporated into or shaped by the values and practices of neo-liberal capitalism, it becomes more difficult to transform them from within. Like others, we therefore draw alternative inspiration and energy from elsewhere – from popular educators, non-geographical communities of practice and academic and political activists. This work has important implications, for it challenges existing boundaries between ‘critical pedagogy’, ‘popular education’ and social and political activism. More importantly, however, education that combines insights from these diverse types of ‘pedagogical’ practices seems to be more personally and politically meaningful. We therefore suggest that linking critical pedagogy within the university to both educational and political struggles for justice beyond it is crucial for a HE that can contribute to progressive social and political change.

References

Ainley, P. and Weyers, M. (2008) ‘The Variety of Student Experience: Investigating the Complex Dynamics of Undergraduate Learning in Russell and Non-Russell Universities in England’, in J. Canaan and W. Shumar (eds), Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 131-152.

Allen, M. and Ainley, P. (2007) Education Make You Fick, Innit?: What’s Gone Wrong in England’s Schools, Colleges and Universities and How to Start Putting It Right, London: Tuffnell Press.
Amsler, S. (2007) The Politics of Knowledge in Central Asia: Science between Marx and the Market, London: Routledge.

Amsler, S. (2008) ‘Higher Education Reform in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: the Politics of Neo-Liberal Agendas in Theory and Practice’, in J. Canaan and W. Shumar (eds), Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 101-127.

Apple, M. (2002) ‘Patriotism, Pedagogy and Freedom: on the Educational Meaning of September 11th’, Teachers College Record, 104 (8): 1760–72.

Boron, A. A. (2006) ‘Reforming the Reforms: Transformation and Crisis in Latin American and Caribbean Universities’, in R. A. Rhoads and C. A. Torres (eds) The University, State and Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 141–63.

Bourdieu, P. (1998) ‘The Essence of Neoliberalism’. Available online at http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/bourdieu/neoliberalism.asp (accessed 24 March 2007).

Callender, C. (2003) ‘Student Financial Support in Higher Education: Access and Exclusion’, in M. Tight (ed.), Access and Exclusion, Oxford: Elsevier Science, pp. 127-58.

Canaan, J. E. (2006) ‘Sand in the Machine: Encouraging Academic Activism with Higher Education Students Today’, paper presented at BSA conference, ‘Sociology, Social Order(s) and Disorder(s)’, 21-23 April.

Canaan, J. E. (2008) ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the (European Social) Forum, or, How New Forms of Accountability Are Transforming Academics’ Identities and Possible Responses’, in J. Canaan and W. Shumar (eds), Structure and Agency in the Neo-Liberal University, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 256-277.

Canaan, J. E. and Shumar, W. (eds) (2008) Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, London and New York: Routledge.

Chatterton, P. (2007) ‘Using Geography to Teach Freedom and Defiance: Lessons in Social Change from ‘Autonomous Geographies’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(3): 419-40.

Clarke, C. (2003) Statement to the House of Commons (January 2003). Available online at: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/hegateway/strategy/hestrategy/pdfs/CharlesClarkeHEStatement.pdf (accessed 5 March 2004).

Coté, M., Day, J. P. and de Peuter, G. (eds) Utopian Pedagogy: Radical Experiments against Neoliberal Globalization, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Crowther, J., Galloway, V. and Martin, I. (eds) (2005) Popular Education: Engaging the Academy, Leicester: NIACE.

Davies, B. and Bendix Petersen, E. (2005) ‘Neo-Liberal Discourse in the Academy: the Forestalling of (Collective) Resistance’, Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 2 (2): 77–97.

Frickel, S. (2004) ‘Just Science? Organizing Scientist Activism in the US Environmental Justice Movement’, Science as Culture, 13 (4): 449–69.

Freire, P. (1996) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. M. B. Ramos, London: Penguin.

Freire, P. (2000) The Paulo Freire Reader, New York: Continuum.

Freire, P., Macedo, D. and Burthoff, A. (1997) Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, London and New York: Routledge.

Fuller, D. and Kitchin, R. (eds) (2004) Radical Theory/Critical Praxis: Making a Difference Beyond the Academy? Kelowna, British Columbia: Praxis (e)Press. Available online at: http://www.praxis-epress.org/rtcp/contents.html ISBN 0973456108 (accessed 8 January 2008).

Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1996) The End of Capitalism (as We Know It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy, Oxford: Blackwell.

Hall, S. (2007) ‘Universities, Intellectuals and Multitudes: An Interview with Stuart Hall’ (by Greig de Peuter), in M. Coté, J. P. Day and G. de Peuter (eds) Utopian Pedagogy: Radical Experiments against Neoliberal Globalization, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 108-28.

Holloway, J. (2005) ‘Zapatismo and the Social Sciences’. Available online at http://www.red.m2014.net/article.php3?id_article=139 (accessed 10 October 2005).

hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York and London: Routledge.

Kane, L. (2007) ‘The Educational Influences on Active Citizens: A Case-Study of Members of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)’, Studies in the Education of Adults, 39 (1): 54–76.

Lewis, M. (1999) ‘The Backlash Factor: Women, Intellectual Labour and Student Evaluation of Courses and Teaching’, in L. K. Christian-Smith and K. S. Kellor, Everyday Knowledge and Uncommon Truths: Women of the Academy, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 59-82.

Lyotard, J. F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2003) Basic Writings, ed. by T. Baldwin, London and New York: Routledge.

Naidoo, R. (2008) ‘Entrenching International Inequality: The Impact of the Global Commodification of Higher Education on Developing Nations’, in J. Canaan and W. Shumar (eds), Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 84-100.

Quinn, J. (2006) ‘Mass Participation but No Curriculum Transformation: The Hidden Issue in the Access to Higher Education Debate’, in D. Jary and R. Jones (eds) Perspectives and Practice in Widening Participation in the Social Sciences, Birmingham: C-SAP, University of Birmingham.

Readings, B. (1996) The University in Ruins, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Rhoads, G. and Slaughter, S. (2006) ‘Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Privatization As Shifting the Target of Public Subsidy in Higher Education’, in R. A. Rhoads and C. A. Torres (eds), The University, State and Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 103–40.

Rhoads, R. A. and Torres, C. A. (eds) (2006) The University, State and Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Santos, B. S. (2003) The Popular University of Social Movements. Available online at http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt (accessed 12 February 2008).

Santos, B. S. (2006) ‘The University in the 21st Century: Toward a Democratic and Emancipatory University Reform’, in R. Rhoads, and C. A. Torres (eds), The University, State and Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Shor, I. (1999) ‘What Is Critical Literacy?’ Journal for Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice, (4): 1. Available online at http://www.lesley.edu/journals/jppp/4/shor.html (accessed 10 June 2007).

Shore, C. and Wright, W. (2000) ‘Coercive Accountability: The Rise of Audit Culture in Higher Education’, in M. Strathern (ed.) Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 57-89.

Shumar, W. (1997) College for Sale: A Critique of the Commodification of Higher Education, London and Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

Slaughter, S. and Leslie, L. L. (1997) Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Trowler, P. (2001) ‘Captured by the Discourse? the Socially Constitutive Power of New Higher Education Discourse in the UK’, Organization, 8 (2): 183–201.

WASS Collective (2007) ‘Gender Transformations in Higher Education’, Sociological Research Online, 12 (1). Available online at http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/1/lambert.html (accessed 10 April 2008).

Wright, S. (2004) ‘Markets, Corporations, Consumer? New Landscapes in Higher Education’, LATISS–Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 1 (2): 71–93.

Response from Janet Strivens

Janet Strivens, Educational Developer, University of Liverpool

As Sarah and Joyce are very clear about their value position, as a starting point to this piece I should be equally clear. As an educational developer I work with staff. I want to inform, motivate and empower them, and I assume they want to inform, motivate and empower their students. But to what end? In so far as academics’ identities are bound up with their subjects, an end which many would concur is that of making more of the students more like themselves: possessing skills more like theirs, knowing more of what they know and, above all, valuing these skills and this knowledge in a similar way. Sometimes this will coincide with valuing progressive social action. Probably more often it does not. A major problem for me as an educational developer working across the institution is that I cannot see how the logic of this paper applies much beyond the boundaries of the subjects mentioned by the authors.

I applaud Sarah’s and Joyce’s efforts to design socially engaged curricula (this is likely to result in more powerful learning environments), to organize learning collectively (ditto) and especially to help students ‘read the world’ critically by ‘reading the [academic] word’ (though I occasionally wonder about this correspondence). I don’t think the spaces for this are necessarily diminished – certainly, technology has opened up new possibilities. There is some irony in Sarah’s comment that ‘the sheer number of students [ . . . ] makes it extremely difficult to facilitate dialogical learning or critical engagement with the social world.’ The ‘unit of resource’ is dramatically lower, but, with widening participation, many, many more students have the opportunity to benefit (despite the gross inequalities that still exist). The resulting pressure has been one of the drivers in the growth of the educational development community: we must re-examine traditional methods of learning and assessment and find better ways.

I also believe that, whatever you do in the classroom (or in the virtual learning environment), the ultimate instrument of liberation or oppression, the ultimate ground for struggle, is assessment. John Heron recognized this in 1981, albeit from a more liberal-humanist perspective:

'The issue here is a political one; that is, it is to do with the exercise of power. And power is simply to do with who makes decisions about whom [ . . . ] the objective of the [educational] process is the emergence of [ . . . ] a person who is self-determining – who can set his [sic] own learning objectives, devise a rational programme to attain them, set criteria of excellence by which to assess the work he produces, and assess his own work in the light of those criteria [ . . . ] assessment is the most political of all the educational processes.'
(Heron 1981: 55–63)

As trade unionists, we recognise it: the only real power we possess is to withdraw our labour from the process of assessing. Increasingly, we do not own the knowledge or the means of accessing it, but we exercise real power through the making of evaluative judgements. Sarah and Joyce might argue that we have been increasingly constrained by the ‘managerialist practices that deprofessionalise academics’ in how we make those judgements: QAA Codes of Practice, institutional assessment strategies, attempts (though these have largely failed) to professionalise the external examiner system. Nevertheless, they themselves are not (I imagine) in a position to award grades to students on the basis of their commitment to social justice.

Inevitably, as an educational developer, I am complicit in this. I exhort staff to set assessment tasks aligned with learning outcomes, to be clear about their assessment criteria and transparent in their moderation and standardization processes. At least part of my purpose is to foster practices that help all students but most especially ‘non-traditional’ students, to engage with, benefit from and perform successfully within the academy. I’m keenly aware of the pressure this puts on overworked academics who are, like Gandalf, already tired. I seek ‘efficiency’ in the learning, teaching and assessment methods I propose (including my championing of e-learning) because this is how I attempt to reconcile my commitments to the interests of both my fellow academics and to the students whom I rarely meet face to face but who are the ultimate motivating force behind what I do. I would like to think that I and my educational developer colleagues are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

References

Heron, J. (1981) ‘Assessment Revisited’, in D. Boud (ed.), Developing Student Autonomy in Learning, London: Kogan Page.

Response from Ranald Macdonald

Ranald Macdonald, Professor of Academic Development, Learning and Teaching Institute, Sheffield Hallam University

On first reading this article, I was inclined to accept the case being made for the adoption of a more critical pedagogy in various forms, even if against the prevailing neo-liberal agenda. However, after reflection and a rereading I became more uncomfortable, and, in response to many of the statements made, I continually asked ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’As an academic developer working in what Rowland (2002) calls the ‘fault lines’ in higher education, my role is partly to encourage and support changes to curricula at institutional level and, more widely, to try to resolve the often conflicting demands of managerial imperatives and my academic colleagues. I am particularly concerned that what is proposed in this article is a largely teacher-focused approach to student learning. There is little sense of the students choosing the what, why and how of the learning, much less how they will demonstrate what and how well they are learning (often referred to as assessment). Nor is there any attempt to focus on the needs of individual learners. It is somewhat disingenuous to claim that large student numbers prevents innovation, as some teaching business studies, courses at the Open University or, where I am currently writing, in Sri Lanka would look in open-eyed amazement at a group of 150 students, even more so one of 80. Why this is a problem is the focus on what the teacher does rather than the learner. Yes, ‘large’ numbers do increase the burden of assessment and administration, but they also present opportunities to be more imaginative.

Whilst widening participation may have caused problems – and the nature of these are in themselves contestable – increasing access for many groups has, in itself, been emancipatory. This has been the case, not least, for first-generation and ethnic-minority students who may have little concern for more radical curricula when the opportunity to gain a higher education to locate them firmly in the mainstream is what matters more to them. That is not to say that we should not challenge these ‘new’ students but, rather, that this challenge should be a feature of all higher education and not just those fortunate enough to be tutored by the authors.

There is also a sense of trying to impose an ideological position on students rather than creating opportunities to explore a range of perspectives, creating more genuinely autonomous learning experiences for learners where they take greater responsibility for their learning in terms of content, process, outcomes and assessment – not least in ‘learning for an unknown future’ (Barnett 2004). However, I am mindful of Brookfield’s warning (2007) that attempts to diversify the curriculum may result in what Marcuse, on whom he is drawing, calls ‘repressive tolerance’ and the further strengthening of the status quo. Sarah and Joyce might legitimately argue that their proposal addresses this concern by practising what Marcuse called ‘liberating tolerance’ whereby students are ‘freed from the prevailing indoctrination’ (1965). It would be interesting to know where they locate their proposals within this dialogue.

Whatever one thinks of the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Teaching Quality Enhancement initiatives such as Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning, National Teaching Fellowships, the Research Informed Teaching Initiative, the Higher Education Academy Subject Network and the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund itself, they have all provided the opportunity for more creative, innovative and divergent approaches to learning, teaching and assessment. Whether these opportunities have been grasped or have been subject to more conservative pressures within institutions is beside the point as they are there.

Even without these initiatives, many courses – in areas such as architecture, environmental studies, urban planning and housing, medicine and allied professions and, yes, even sociology – have long-adopted more enquiry-focused approaches whereby students address authentic issues in local communities, not-for-profit organisations and small and medium sized enterprises. Here, students have to engage with the realities of local constraints: politics, social and economic characteristics and, the most challenging aspect of all, people. Here are the opportunities to adopt different perspectives – whether critical pedagogy or others – whilst letting students experience the reality of authentic environments on the theoretical perspectives they are exploring.

So, whilst personally attracted to critical pedagogy, this article presents more questions than answers for me given the reality of the context in which I work – hard as I am trying to change it.

References

Barnett, R. (2004) ‘Learning for an Unknown Future’, Higher Education Research and Development, 23 (3): 247–60.

Brookfield, S. (2007) ‘Diversifying Curriculum As the Practice of Repressive Tolerance’, Teaching in Higher Education, 12 (5–6): 557–68.

Marcuse, H. (1965) 'Repressive tolerance', in Wolff, R.P., Moore, B & Marcuse, H (eds) A critique of pure tolerance, quoted in Brookfield (2007).

Rowland, S. (2002) ‘Overcoming Fragmentation in Professional Life: the Challenge for Academic Development’, Higher Education Quarterly, 56 (1): 52–64.

Response from Sarah Amsler and Joyce Canaan

Sarah S. Amsler and Joyce E. Canaan

We are really pleased to have the opportunity to engage with readers of our work and appreciate that ELiSS has been set up to encourage dialogue with commissioned authors. We thank Janet Strivens and Ranald MacDonald for their thoughtful comments on our paper, which have already pointed to the importance of opening up more public discussion about the theory and practice of critical pedagogy.

We want to make a number of points in response to Janet’s and Ranald’s critiques, and discuss what we see as our commonalities and differences. First, we recognise that we share a number of similar concerns – specifically with meeting the challenge to engage greater numbers and diversity of students in higher education (HE) in democratic educational processes. Second, we seem to share a commitment to ensuring that students are prepared for the challenging world that they will face when they graduate. Ours is a world of tremendous inequality within and between nations, impending crises of global warming and peak oil (for which we are not prepared with alternative energy sources or strategies for viably lessening oil dependence), a global heightening of terror and a profound global economic downturn. We believe that we differ most from Janet and Ranald in our understanding of the strategies that are effective and important for achieving this broad goal in the current economic, social and political climate – and we also believe that we conceptualise this climate in profoundly different ways. In our view, the context of HE is not simply one of progressive and perpetual change, as Ranald suggests, or of new challenges due to greater numbers of students, as Janet argues. Rather, we think that some of the changes in how and why students are educated today reflect wider social and political forces which are detrimental for our students, ourselves, our society and our world more generally. We also therefore seek to achieve somewhat different ends through the educational process – although, like Janet, we believe that our rationales must be matters of continual reflection and debate.

We are pleased that Janet and Ranald recognise that the increased number and greater diversity of students participating in HE today require lecturers to rethink their teaching strategies, and we agree that this is a potential opportunity for developing learning and teaching. They acknowledge, as do we, that a key element of this rethinking is that lecturers should encourage students to consider the relevance and applicability of their academic learning to their everyday lives and professional practices. They also recognise, however, that there can be a tension in ‘seeking to help students ‘read the world’ critically by ‘reading the [academic] word’ (Janet’s insertion) and that, as Ranald notes, this tension might result in lecturers imposing our own ‘ideological position on students’. As problems of authority and autonomy are central within critical pedagogy, we welcome the opportunity to respond to this important critique.

First, like Ira Shor in his excellent summary of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, we suggest that ‘the whole activity of education is political in nature [ . . . ] All forms of education are political, whether or not teachers and students acknowledge the politics in their work’ (Shor 1993: 27). Indeed, it is the recognition of the inherent politics of education that draws us to critical pedagogy. It also makes it particularly important in the current climate, where learning is often seen as unquestionably linked to earning and where many students have been shaped by educational experiences that encourage the development of instrumental relationships to knowledge and experience. We would hence like to further consider Ranald’s comment about ‘first-generation and ethnic-minority students who may have little concern for more radical curricula when the opportunity to gain a higher education to locate them firmly in the mainstream is what matters more to them’. We agree with the subtext of this comment, which is that definitions of ‘emancipation’ in education are ambiguous, situated and may include aspirations to mainstream employment for students who have been historically marginalised or excluded. As critical sociologists, however, we consider it our responsibility to help students understand the political nature of ‘aspirations’ in education, to explain why wage labour are not necessarily value-neutral and to introduce them to and enable them to reflect on alternative approaches to educational policy and the world of work.

Our aim in doing this is not to ‘make more of our students more like [ . . . ] [our]selves’, as Janet worries. Whilst we believe that we need to continually create rather than presume common ground (both amongst students and between students and ourselves) in order to work together, we also think that education should enable students to develop skills and ideas that we don’t have so that they can know more, and different, things than we do. Indeed, we think it is imperative to disrupt the assumption that our increasingly diverse students should become more ‘like us’ or each other. We encourage our students to question the values we promote, as well as the ones they hold, and the processes through which we promote these values in our teaching. Thus, for us, critical pedagogy requires not a ‘teacher-focused approach to student learning’, as Ranald suggests, but an approach in which teachers acknowledge, listen to and guide students who are encouraged to discuss and question ideas in an open dialogical way. This requires a pedagogy that is, as the anti-racist feminist Liz Ellsworth (1992) noted when reflecting on the challenges she faced whilst teaching a media and anti-racist pedagogies module, partial, shifting, context-specific and reflexive.

It does not follow from this argument, however, that widening participation is ‘inherently emancipatory’ in practice, as Ranald suggests. We are mindful of Lisa Duggan’s point that in the current neo-liberal era, ideas about equity or freedom may indicate ‘a stripped-down equality’ (2003: xx) of rather limited dimensions. Here we offer a different interpretation of the consequences of the growing numbers and diversity of students. Let us be clear that we support the full and radical democratisation of HE, rejecting the false choice of advocating either widening participation as it is currently practised or a return to elitist and exclusive education. We would simply like to point out that whilst recognising increasing diversity, we must not ignore the problem of continuing inequality within universities. Large student numbers are not necessarily problematic, as both Janet and Ranald agree. However, they become so when accompanied by inadequate and dwindling resources that require impersonal forms of mass education, particularly as we face the ‘gross inequalities that still exist’ in HE, to quote Janet. We should not forget that some of the most radically egalitarian philosophies of education, approaches which are allied most closely with the ostensible goals of widening participation, emphasise the importance of process, dialogue, creativity and spontaneity – experiences that become increasingly infrequent as HE standardised and made more bureaucratically accountable. One reason why we like the virtual learning environment Moodle, for example, is that it was created by an educationalist, who, informed by social constructivism, recognised that learning requires dialogue, engagement, reflection and debate (Dougiamas 1998). We welcome this technology not because it allows us to deal with a ‘dramatically lower’ ‘unit of resourse’ in teaching, which Janet suggests is the value of new educational technology, but because it supports the development of these particular activities.

A similar point can be made about the role of assessment, which we see as something to be interrogated philosophically and politically, rather than simply improved within existing conditions and constraints. Is assessment the ultimate grounds for (social and political) struggle, as Janet suggests? We would like to suggest that it is not particular methods of assessment, but assessment per se which is problematic in HE. Our main concern is that assessment is primarily used to stratify students relative to one another and particular class marks (first, upper second, etc.). It is possible to interpret this as a form of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu 1989: 21). Individuals can be damaged by being labelled ‘first class, second class, third class or failed’ students and, therefore, in part, as people – not only in terms of the obvious consequences for self-esteem and relating to others in hierarchical ways, but also because they may learn to accept this as a ‘natural’ fact of social life. Assessment is not just about ‘who’ makes decisions, as the Heron quote in Janet’s piece suggests, but also about how and why these decisions are made in the first place. Indeed, we feel that it is assessment which most fundamentally alienates us from our students. What if we assessed students differently, not relative to others but to their own goals, which we discuss at the outset? Rather than seeking to ensure simply that our ‘assessment tasks are aligned with learning outcomes’ as Janet suggests, we would like to open dialogue about the problematic nature of some prevailing theories of learning outcomes themselves. Introducing learning outcomes is important: it requires us to articulate expectations and makes both us and our students accountable. Increasingly, however, these outcomes are evaluated not on the extent to which they enable engaged learning, but in terms of things such as ‘successful pass rates’, which are themselves important criteria within competitive league tables.

In other words, our overarching argument is not that academics should be exempt from responding to the changing conditions of HE, or that ‘critical pedagogy’ is an unproblematic panacea for resolving contemporary problems within it. We agree that we must find better ways of teaching in this context and better means of democratising education. However, we argue that we must recognise the economic and political roots of the new ‘challenges’ of education rather than pathologise academics who find it difficult to ‘make things work’ in this system by altering pedagogical techniques – or who find the overall project politically problematic in its own right. In short, we believe that the development of our everyday teaching practices cannot proceed without being informed by critical analyses of the structural conditions of HE, on the one hand, or contributing to the broader goal of advancing human freedom and social equality on the other.

We look forward to developing this discussion in future, a discussion in which we continue to welcome insights from educational developers as well as academics.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1989) ‘Social space and symbolic power’, Sociological Theory, 7(1): 14-25.

Dougiamas, M. (1998) A Journey into Constructivism. Available online at http://dougiamas.com/writing/constructivism.html (accessed 29 September 2008).

Duggan, L. (2003) The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy, Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press.

Ellsworth, E. (1992) ‘Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy’, in C. Luke and J. Gore (eds), Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 90–119.

Shor, I. (1993) ‘Education Is Politics: Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy’, in P. McLaren and P. Leonard (eds), Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 25–35.

The Authors

Joyce Canaan is a Reader in Sociology at Birmingham City University and Sociology Coordinator for C-SAP, the subject network for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics. She convenes the ‘Researching Students’ Study Group of the British Sociological Association. Joyce has written extensively on secondary and higher education, focusing, in recent years, on higher education pedagogy and students’ experiences of learning. She co-edited Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University (2008), Learning and Teaching Social Theory (2007) and a special issue of International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (2004), and also published in Cultural Studies—Critical Methodologies, Teaching in Higher Education, and Learning and teaching in the Social Sciences.

Sarah Amsler is a Lecturer in Sociology at Aston University. Her interests are in the politics of knowledge and culture, the critical sociology of education, and critical theory. Her research focuses on the role of cultural work in transformative social action and the ways that education, broadly defined, is conceptualised as a political practice. She recently finished a research project intellectual reform in post-socialist societies, and is presently engaged in research about the politics of anticipatory consciousness in theory and practice. She has published The Politics of Knowledge in Central Asia (2007), co-edited a volume on Theorizing Change in Post-Socialist Societies (2007) and has published in Current Perspectives in Social Theory (2008). A co-authored chapter on ‘Critique and judgment in cultural sociology’ and several articles on critical theories of ‘hope’ and ‘crisis thinking’ are forthcoming.

Ranald Macdonald is Professor of Academic Development and Head of Strategic Development in the Learning and Teaching Institute at Sheffield Hallam University. A previous Co-Chair of the UK's Staff and Educational Development Association he was until recently also Chair of its Research Committee and is a SEDA Fellowship holder. Ranald was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2005.

Janet Strivens is an Educational Developer in the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Liverpool. She has a special interest in all aspects of assessment. She is also leading the implementation of personal development planning within the university, which reflects the range of her interests from e-portfolios to the self-managed learner. She helped to design the Liverpool University Student Interactive Database (LUSID), the university's personal development planning support tool, and is still involved in its development. In the other half of her time, she is also Senior Associate Director of the Centre for Recording Achievement ( http://www.recordingachievement.org), the national network organisation which supports and promotes the use of recording, reviewing and action planning processes in lifelong learning. This half-time appointment gives her access to national and international developments in both technology and pedagogical practice to support the lifelong learner.