This WiP workshop looks at research into student experience, with presentations from both Nick Emmel (SSP) and Stacey Mottershaw (LUBS).
The different experiences of averaged students - Nick Emmel (SSP) for the DASE research and scholarship group
I report on a survey conducted at a northern Russell Group university with taught undergraduate and postgraduate students to investigate sense of belonging. There is increasing interest in sense of belonging in the modern university, associated with key policy initiatives across the student lifecycle. Research investigating belonging has often focused on marginal groups. Sociological accounts frequently locate around Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and field at the expense of investigation of intersubjective experience and the relationship between individuals, their networks and institutional practices and polices within which these are shaped. Our survey sought to investigate these dimensions of sense of belonging. Reporting on our self-selecting sample (n=440) of survey respondents, this talk will offer initial reflections on perceptions of what sense of belonging is and is not, locate these accounts in the characteristics of respondents and the wider student population, and offer tentative explanation from these empirical accounts.
"Can you hear me?" - Using Listening Rooms to explore student success for under-represented students in LUBS and AHC - Stacey Mottershaw (LUBS)
In this session I will outline how we used the award-winning 'Listening Rooms' data collection method to explore student success for under-represented students in Leeds University Business School and the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures. We completed Listening Rooms with 19 pairs of students over the course of 2020-21. Over half of the participants were on the Plus programme and were from backgrounds that are typically under-represented in the University. The session will cover the context for the project, the method used and initial findings, and would welcome thoughts on further analysis of the incredibly rich data set.
As usual, there will be time for questions and discussion.
