Claire Undy

I joined Camberwell three years ago as the First Year Leader in BA Fine Art Photography, and much of my focus during the PgCert has been from this perspective- exploring issues such as wellbeing and integration that have a huge impact on first year attainment and retention. I have observed a lack of integration between the three year groups on BA, which was unfortunately exacerbated in the last academic year when third-year students were moved to a different campus during the accessibility building works at Peckham Road. I decided to use the Action Research Project as an opportunity to address this issue and explore ways of increasing social integration between year groups which I believed had the potential to improve student wellbeing and sense of belonging.

In my previous Inclusive Practices research I explored some of the barriers that prevented international students engaging with support for wellbeing, disability or mental health problems. A key finding was that international students were far more likely to seek help if recommended by a peer than a tutor, which led me to think about the value of bringing together third and first-year students, for the first-years to benefit from the experience and guidance of students who have been there and done it before. 

‘Focussing on peer support is an integral way to foster community’. Imad, M. (2022) 

In their report about how best to support students transitioning between Further and Higher education, Hagger, Scopa, & Harley (2011), identify ‘student mentoring’ and ‘buddying programmes’ amongst their suggestions to improve provision at UAL. While I’m aware of this being available at a college-wide level, my experiences with students demonstrated that many of those that might benefit most from these opportunities were not taking them up. As a result, I chose to implement a smaller-scale mentoring programme at course-level, which could be tailored more specifically to the individuals involved.

Strayhorn T. L. (2019) describes a sense of belonging as ‘a basic human need and motivation … it refers to students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling or sensation of connectedness, the experience of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by and important to the group or others.’ 

Constructing a sense of belonging must be more than supporting students to make friends but helping them to identify as ‘fitting in’ or being ‘in the right place’. First year students arrive with hugely varied experience, and Neil and Reid (2011) provide a useful summary of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and how a perceived ‘deficit’ of ‘cultural capital affects how students see themselves, how they are seen by others, including peers and academic staff. They can easily come to feel isolated, out of place, as not really belonging.’ 

My intention in establishing a mentoring scheme that brings together first and third-year students is that the new students will be able to see something of themselves in those with more experience, creating reassurance and a sense of fitting in, being ‘seen’ and valued as an individual.

A brief introduction to the Interchange Project given at the start-of-term full course meeting.

References

• Hagger, J., Scopa, K and Harley, C. (2011) The Art of Smooth Transition. In O’Neill P., Bhagat D. Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies. [U.K.]: UK: CHEAD 
• Imad, M. (2022) Our Brains, Emotions and Learning: Eight Principles of Trauma-Informed Teaching. Edited by Carello J., and Thompson P in Trauma-informed pedagogies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Neil, K and Reid, E. (2011) Accessing and Decoding Communities of Cultural Capital. In O’Neill P., Bhagat D. Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies. [U.K.]: UK: CHEAD 
• Strayhorn T. L., ProQuest (Firm), (2019). ”A Bridge to Belonging”: Insights from First-Year College Students in College students’ sense of belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students. New York, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Ajjawi, Gravett & O’Shea (2023) describe how ‘a troubling tension exists between sectoral desires to fix and foster an abiding ‘sense of belonging’, and the multiple, affective, and material ways in which diverse individuals experience belonging’, going on to describe how traditional attempts to foster ‘belonging’ through extra-curricular activity such as parties and societies can privilege young, full-time students, unintendedly ‘othering’ those outside of these characteristics. The financial difficulties of recent years have meant increasing numbers of students are deferring their studies or needing to take on significant amounts of paid work to make get by, leaving them with less time and resources to socialise. 

My design for the mentoring programme ‘Interchange’ has intended to ask a minimal amount of time from students, while providing a platform that would enable them to make social connections within the structure of a taught session, that might be informally developed around campus. Through discussion with colleagues, the Course Leader and Third Year Leader I decided that participation for third-years would be optional and presented as part of a series of opportunities for them to develop professional skills (for example teaching experience) whereas the first-year students would all attend as part of their scheduled teaching sessions.

An initial concern was how to incentivise third-year participation. I was conscious that they would be extremely busy writing dissertations during the autumn term and that I might struggle to recruit volunteers. I designed ‘Interchange’ as a reciprocal exchange, where six hours of time from the third years (in three, 2-hour sessions) would be exchanged for a 6hr-day from the first years helping to prepare the degree show spaces later in the year, providing support for one another at different stages of the course.

Research shows that students wish to integrate with one another, but ‘making connections and belonging was emotional, exposing students to a level of vulnerability.’ Ajjawi, Gravett & O’Shea (2023). It was clear that participants would need clearly defined roles and a shared task to help them to start conversations, so I designed the initial session as a treasure hunt, where small teams of first years were each led by a third-year in the task of finding various ‘lesser-known’ places around campus- a useful, induction activity that took around an hour, providing plenty of opportunities for conversation. This was followed by an interactive Q&A, where questions prompted introductions and dialogue between the full group back in the studio.

A copy of the presentation used in the first Interchange Session: Introductions, Treasure Hunt and Q&A.

For the second and third sessions, the third-years are put in a teaching role- they have already led crits in small groups, and in late January they will help first years prepare for an assessment with one-to-one troubleshooting tutorials. 

I have increasingly witnessed students struggling to prioritise their studies amongst a need to earn money in the current cost-of-living crisis, and it is easy to imagine how ‘extras’ such as a mentoring programme would be a low priority in this climate. As such I have tried to get students on board with a ‘pedagogy of taking care’ and to help them view their ‘education not solely in terms of the production of human capital, commodification and individualism but also in valuing the diversity and divergence of human potential, self-affirmation and of collective responsibility and well-being.’ Atkinson (2022).

References

• Atkinson D. (2022). Pedagogies of taking care. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Ajjawi, R., Gravett, K., & O’Shea, S. (2023). The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education, 30(4), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261

There are a number of ethical considerations I need to consider during this project, both practical and moral. Bringing students together to discuss their own lived experiences is at the heart of the project. These dialogues will be most impactful if allowed to take place without intervention, however this brings associated risk. Students at either end of the mentoring partnership may reveal personal or sensitive information. As final-year students take on the role of ‘teacher’, the power dynamic changes. There is a chance that they may give poor advice, or inflammatory opinions, and it’s possible that as facilitator I may not be made aware of these conversations to provide support.

To limit these risks, I will introduce the idea of duty of care to the third-year students when briefing them about the first session, and establish supportive ground rules at the start of the session. During each session I will provide regular ‘recap’ moments to check-in with groups, providing an opportunity to steer conversations back to the relevant topic if necessary. Any personal issues that arise will be treated confidentially and support will be signposted where necessary. At our weekly year meetings, I will provide first-years with an opportunity to discuss anything they’ve found confusing.

I hope the intervention will have a positive impact on the course but have a responsibility not to significantly increase the workload of my colleagues or disrupt planned teaching. Setting strict boundaries on the time the project should take should allow participants to manage their time and other responsibilities. I wish to ensure the experience is mutually beneficial for all participants and that they respect the bigger picture of a reciprocal exchange of care, so have asked them to consider this when signing up, and not to sign up if they didn’t feel they could commit to the three sessions.

Participants will be pre-warned that I am recording observations and gathering data with optional questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Consent forms will be provided for interviewees. Faces and names will be anonymised, and students have the opportunity to opt-out or request a copy of the data. Data will be stored on our internal Sharepoint system and deleted after the completion of the PgCert.

I have a responsibility to use the data I collect responsibly and reflect it fairly- even if it does not show what I hope it might. Gray & Malins (2007) talk about ‘trustworthiness’ within research into humans as an equivalent to ‘validity’ in scientific study. There is an ethical requirement to present the research in a way that reflects it accurately, with no bias or agenda. ‘Have you tried to explore, describe, explain in an open and unbiased way, or are you more concerned with delivering the required answer or selecting the evidence to support a case?’ Robson (1993) cited in Gray and Malins (2007)

To this end I will engage in ‘communicative validation’ (Gray and Malins, 2007) where the subjects of my research have the opportunity to feed back if they feel they have been misrepresented by my summary of their contribution.  

Copy of Ethical Action Plan

Copies of consent forms signed by interviewees. Names and signatures have been redacted for privacy.

References

• Gray, C. & Mallins, J. (2007) Interpreting the map: methods of evaluation and analysis in Visualising Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design, UK: Taylor & Francis Group. 

My initial concern about a reluctance to participate from third-year students turned out to be misplaced. When I first briefed the initiative to a third-year group, a dozen signed up immediately. In my briefing I had asked them to reflect on their past two years of study and think through what they’d learned along the way. By chance rather than design, this seemed to tap into a moment of reflection as they realised they were in the final stages of the course and began looking back on their own journey. 

Copy of initial briefing presentation for Year 3 students

I was the First Year Leader when this cohort arrived at Camberwell two years previously, and so for many- I would have been the first person they spoke to on arrival. For a fortnight after briefing the initiative I was frequently stopped in the corridor and canteen by third-year students that had been at the Interchange Briefing and were eager to tell me about their own personal experiences on the course and how they had grown as people. I became conscious of how my role as researcher played a part in how the students engaged with the project.

 ‘Narrative inquiry foregrounds the interactions between researcher and research participants and fostering reciprocity in research relationships’. Akoto (2013), cited in Timmis et all (2024)

Rather than an impartial observer, in Braun and Clarke’s (2022) guide to Thematic Analysis they describe how within the qualitative paradigm, the subjectivity of the researcher is valued as a ‘situated interpreter of meaning’. 

A second, pleasant surprise was the specific third-years who signed up. Rather than the ‘regulars’ I was expecting, who can be relied upon to turn up and engage in most optional activities, the list was made up almost entirely of students who had at some point struggled on the course. Whether this struggle was through failing or resubmitting units, problems with attendance, financial difficulty, changing course or taking time out or through lacking in confidence and struggling to integrate socially. For me, there seemed to be a clear correlation between the students who felt they hadn’t had an ‘ideal’ experience, and those wanting to be involved with potentially improving the experience of new students.

It became apparent that by reframing these negative experiences, third-years were able to see them as a useful piece of embodied knowledge, that could be applied and used in a constructive manner. Wenger-Trayner et al. (2014) talks about journeying through the landscape of practice, which is constructed from a ‘social body of knowledge’ bringing together knowledge, personal perspectives and lived experience. With this in mind, I quickly added a Q&A to the first Interchange session, with prompts to provide an opportunity for third-years to bring some of this experience into the conversation. 

A copy of the Padlet responses from the Q&A in the first Interchange session. It was interesting to note which experiences third-year students chose to share on the Padlet, and which they only spoke about verbally. Note the lack of engagement with the question about ‘low points’, which was discussed in-depth in the studio.

Ajjawi, Gravett & O’Shea’s (2023) study on belonging found that students did not want to be passive consumers of an education but to actively contribute towards a bigger picture explaining ‘how personal feelings of belonging intersect with social structures that work to include or exclude – such as race … or economic means.’ At this point my research question evolved as I began to understand how the act of sharing their personal experiences- however challenging, could make the act of mentoring meaningful for the third-year students. 

References

• Ajjawi, R., Gravett, K., & O’Shea, S. (2023). The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education, 30(4), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261
• Braun V., Clarke V., . (2022). Thematic analysis: A Practical Guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.
• Sue Timmis, Emmanuel Mgqwashu, Sheila Trahar, Kibashini Naidoo, Lisa Lucas & Patricia Muhuro (2024) Students as co-researchers: participatory methods for decolonising research in teaching and learning in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:7, 1793-1812, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2359738
• Wenger E., Fenton-O’Creevy M., Hutchinson S., Kubiak C., Wenger-Trayner B. and ProQuest (Firm). (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice. London: Taylor and Francis Group.

When first introduced to the idea of Action Research, I was particularly keen to undertake Participatory Action Research. This was partly because the non-hierarchical approach aligned with my own pedagogical values, but also because I felt that involving the students in the design of a mentoring programme made it more likely to meet their own needs. However, given the time restraints of the project it became clear that I would not be able to authentically co-author my research with students, and I was keen to avoid the issue Timmis et al (2024) described as commonly occurring, where ‘co-researchers are often only involved in data collection and therefore can only respond to and produce data for a pre-figured set of aims and methods.’ Instead the compromise I reached was to be as open as possible with the participants about what I was doing and invite their input at any stage. This has left me with a robust set of suggestions for improving the programme in future academic years. 

My initial approach to data collection was to produce questionnaires, which participants were asked to respond to at the end of each session. These comprised of both quantitative and qualitive questions, with the intention of tracking how these developed over both sessions. I received 10 responses to the first questionnaire and 8 to the second, so while this was enough to take some insights, it was only around a quarter of participants and felt insufficient to draw strong conclusions from. Students had the opportunity to opt-out of completing the questionnaire, so it is also possible that those with strong opinions that would have skewed the results chose not to contribute it.

Summary of data from questionnaires after Interchange sessions 1 & 2

Full collection of responses from questionnaires after Interchange sessions 1 & 2

Confronted with what I saw as a lack of empirical data but a wealth of observations, I found Braun ad Clarke’s (2022) writing around having a ‘qualitative sensibility’ very useful, one of the conditions being ‘a desire for understanding that is about nuance, complexity and even contradiction’… and ‘the ability to embrace the idea that knowledge comes from a position, and a disinterest in the idea of a singular universal truth to be discovered.’ This has helped me to see appreciate the understandings that I did have, and how I could develop my understanding of these.

Once I’d narrowed my focus to making a meaningful experience for third-year students, I proposed some semi-structured interviews with third-year participants to get further insight into their perspectives and experiences. I was very wary of asking for more time from students that had already contributed a lot and were in the final stages of writing their dissertations. As predicted, uptake was limited, but I was pleased to be able to interview three students, whose contributions proved very insightful. 

Full transcripts of interviews with Students S, P and G.

The data I have collected brings together material from different sources and perspectives with own subjective interpretations, which are heavily influenced by my prior knowledge of the participants. I enjoyed Jones, Holmes, Macrae & Maclure’s 2010 text ‘Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing?’ who champion a ‘montage’ approach to compiling data, considering how a ‘faithful’ depiction of an observation may not necessarily be neutral or objective, as it combines subjective, temporal and other understandings of the scene. As an artist, this immediately made me think of the 1923 Picasso quote ‘art is a lie that makes us realize the truth’, and I began to think how to tell the ‘story’ of what I had found.

References

• Braun V., Clarke V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A Practical Guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.
• Jones, L., Holmes, R., Macrae, C. and Maclure, M. (2010) ‘Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing?’, Qualitative Research, 10:4, pp. 479-491. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468794110366814
• Sue Timmis, Emmanuel Mgqwashu, Sheila Trahar, Kibashini Naidoo, Lisa Lucas & Patricia Muhuro (2024) Students as co-researchers: participatory methods for decolonising research in teaching and learning in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:7, 1793-1812, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2359738
• Picasso, P in interview with de Zayas, M in The Arts: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine Covering All Phases of Ancient and Modern Art, New York, 1923.

In analysing the data I gathered, I used several thematic analysis approaches, and found Braun and Clarke’s (2022) guide to this process very helpful. Initially I entered the student responses to the interviews into a word cloud, eliminating functional words to reveal key topics of conversation. The most frequently used words tended to be those that you would expect in a conversation around belonging and mentoring, such as ‘help’, ‘feel’, ‘grow’. However, much smaller on the word cloud were the more uncomfortable words- ‘struggled’, ‘overwhelming’, ‘lonely’ etc. which although small, felt significant.

This mirrored my observations of the Q&A session, where I asked a mixture of positive and negative questions. Students were particularly reluctant to answer the ‘negative’ questions on the public Padlet, however frequently mentioned difficult experiences verbally that had clearly had a significant impact upon them. This suggested to me an element of shame or embarrassment about struggling or not always having a great time at university. This was a moment where I did not feel the ‘data’ of what was being said truly reflected the experiences the students were communicating.

After immersing myself in the data I drew out key ‘codes’ (Braun and Clark, 2022) and identified these within the interviews. Notable codes were a perception of being different to the majority or feeling isolated, wishing to make friends and connections and a wish to improve things for others. Similarly to the Q&A, comments that suggested a lack of knowledge or confidence, or revealed a negative personal experience were often paired with a comment about changing things or coping- reflecting a sense of students being reluctant to complain, or feeling that negative experiences were a failing of some sort.

Codes chosen for Thematic Analysis

Coded interviews with third-year students

Highlighting these codes also provided an insight into the main motivations to participate in mentoring. I was surprised how frequently a desire to make friends and connections was mentioned by final year students. Most research around social integration focusses on new, first-year students making friends, which is where most institutional support is provided. It may be the case that final-year students also need support for social integration and perhaps feel an additional layer of vulnerability for having not ‘achieved’ this as fully as they might like.

Suggestions for improving the project, or negative feedback was often coupled with a reference to feeling uncomfortable or lacking confidence during certain situations. So while students evidently wish to connect with one another, they find it difficult and need support and structure in order to facilitate those initial encounters. The questionnaire responses suggest that students from different year groups felt more comfortable working with one another over time, but this needs careful management so that social encounters do not feel like another area where students might perceive they have ‘failed’.

The questionnaire (on previous blog post) also asked the third year students for their motivations for taking part in the programme, which were mainly altruism (83%) and professional development (87.5%) rather for the reward of the ‘reciprocal labour’ (54%). This fits with findings by Ajjawi, Gravett, & O’Shea, who explored how students wished to belong. ‘Students described wanting to have and make purposeful and meaningful connections with the university community … for a broader purpose … feeling like they were contributing to something communal beyond themselves as individuals’. (2023).

References

• Ajjawi, R., Gravett, K., & O’Shea, S. (2023). The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education, 30(4), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261
• Braun V., Clarke V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A Practical Guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.

I have learned a great deal through this process. It was always my intention to use the ARP as an opportunity to intensively road-test an idea that I’d like to implement into the course in a long-term way, and I have gathered lots practical feedback and suggestions for tweaks and revisions. For example- giving more structure to the third-year mentors to help them feel more confident in their role and moving the time-frame of the programme into the later part of the academic year to avoid overloading those writing their dissertations, and to allow all that want to take part to do so.

These are all useful practical details that I will revise and adapt for the next ‘Interchange Project’. However, some of my key learning as an educator has been about what makes an experience valuable for different students at different stages of their learning journey, which seems to be more subtle and complex than I expected. 

It has become clear to me that engaging with difficult personal experiences they’ve had while at university allows some third-years to see these experiences at a distance, recognise how it’s helped them to grow as a person and use these as a learning opportunity that might support a first year student. ‘If a body of knowledge is a landscape of practice, then our personal experience of learning can be thought of as a journey through this landscape.’ Wenger-Trayner, et al (2014)

Nevertheless, as my data analysis has revealed, talking about this ‘journey’ is something that can be deeply private and potentially shameful for students, many of whom may feel embarrassed about not having ‘succeeded’ whether socially or otherwise at university. While prompts and questions can invite these sort of disclosures, they can’t be forced, and not all students are ready to reflect on their experiences in this way. It is clear to me now why supporting a sense of belonging can’t fully be achieved at a college-wide level, and must be done sensitively and through knowing students as individuals. Perhaps rather than developing a blueprint for a successful mentoring programme that could be replicated, this project might need to be rewritten year on year, for different students and different encounters. 

‘A pedagogy of taking care … involves not only drawing upon established forms of knowledge, values and practice but also engaging with uncertainty and the not-known as it encounters the diversity of ways of learning and their respective potentials.’ (Atkinson, 2022)

Before I began, I was aware that ‘success’ in this context might be something quite discreet and hard to measure. Some of the most effective connections between first and third-year students have been made on a one-to-one basis, where I have played the “embarrassing relative” and introduced specific students, whether from the same home country or with similar interests. If this is done under the guise of asking one to help the other with something particular, there is often sufficient structure for a social connection to be made with limited awkwardness. Student P was a recipient of one of these introductions and spoke in the interview about being pleased to have made a connection with a fellow Italian after previously feeling quite isolated.

‘That’s great if it’s once. Yeah, it’s already meaningful.’

So perhaps although discreet, these interventions have a lasting value.

References

• Atkinson D., . (2022). Pedagogies of taking care. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Wenger E., Fenton-O’Creevy M., Hutchinson S., Kubiak C., Wenger-Trayner B. and ProQuest (Firm). (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice. London: Taylor and Francis Group.

• Ajjawi, R., Gravett, K., & O’Shea, S. (2023). The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education, 30(4), 791–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261
• Ajjawi, R. & Gravett, K. (2021). Belonging as situated practice in Studies in Higher Education, 47(7), 1386–1396. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1894118
• Atkinson D., . (2022). Pedagogies of taking care. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Braun V., Clarke V., . (2022). Thematic analysis: A Practical Guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.
• Imad, M. (2022) Our Brains, Emotions and Learning: Eight Principles of Trauma-Informed Teaching. Edited by Carello J., and Thompson P in Trauma-informed pedagogies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Diamond C. T. P., Mullen C. A., . (2006). The postmodern educator. New York, New York: P. Lang.
• Gray, C. & Mallins, J. (2007) Interpreting the map: methods of evaluation and analysis in Visualising Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design, UK: Taylor & Francis Group. 
• Hagger, J., Scopa, K and Harley, C. (2011) The Art of Smooth Transition. In O’Neill P., Bhagat D. Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies. [U.K.]: UK: CHEAD 
• Jones, L., Holmes, R., Macrae, C. and Maclure, M. (2010) ‘Documenting classroom life: how can I write about what I am seeing?’, Qualitative Research, 10:4, pp. 479-491. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468794110366814
• McManus, J. (2011) Every word starts with ‘dis’: the impact of class on choice, application and admissions to prestigious higher education art and design courses. In O’Neill P., Bhagat D. Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies. [U.K.]: UK: CHEAD 
• Neil, K and Reid, E. (2011) Accessing and Decoding Communities of Cultural Capital. In O’Neill P., Bhagat D. Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies. [U.K.]: UK: CHEAD 
• Strayhorn T. L., ProQuest (Firm), (2019). Sense of Belonging and Graduate Students’ in College students’ sense of belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students. New York, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
• Strayhorn T. L., ProQuest (Firm), (2019). ”A Bridge to Belonging”: Insights from First-Year College Students in College students’ sense of belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students. New York, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
• Sue Timmis, Emmanuel Mgqwashu, Sheila Trahar, Kibashini Naidoo, Lisa Lucas & Patricia Muhuro (2024) Students as co-researchers: participatory methods for decolonising research in teaching and learning in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:7, 1793-1812, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2359738
• Wenger E., . (1999). Communities of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
• Wenger E., Fenton-O’Creevy M., Hutchinson S., Kubiak C., Wenger-Trayner B. and ProQuest (Firm). (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice. London: Taylor and Francis Group.