Working in partnership with students to investigate the diversity of students’ experiences at Oxford

In this conversation recorded on 19 March 2024, Elizabeth Rahman, a Senior Evaluation Officer at the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Hau Ming Tse, a Research Fellow at the Department of Education, Vanessa Worthington, an Outreach Development Coordinator (BAME Programmes) in Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach, and Liz Polding, a Public Policy Research Officer in the Department of Education, discuss their experience working in partnership with students to investigate the diversity of students’ experiences at Oxford. 

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Lauren Bolz: 

Hello to anyone listening in. I am Lauren Bolz, an educational development project officer within the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Oxford. And I am here with four colleagues from across the University who have been engaged in quite a major project researching the diversity of students’ experiences at Oxford. And we’re all here to have a chat about all the different ways that you have engaged with students across this project, particularly homing in on those student-staff partnerships you have incorporated into it. And, of course, the reason we are focusing on that is that this conversation is contributing to the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Student-Staff Partnerships Toolkit. So we’re going to really focus in on those bits where you shared ownership of researching or bringing to light students’ experiences with the students themselves. So, thank you to all for of you for joining this Teams meeting and having this chat with me. First, can I invite each of you to say your name and your roles in the university and the project itself?  

Elizabeth Rahman:

Sure, I’ll go first. My name is Elizabeth Rahman. I'm the senior evaluation officer at the Centre for Teaching of Learning. I led the diversity of student experience project and the various research streams of which included the staff-student enquiry, the advisory group, the literature report, as well as the survey, and there's probably another one that I've forgotten. Should I hand over to Hau Ming? 

Hau Ming Tse: 

Hello, my name is Hau Ming Tse. I am a research fellow at the Department of Education. I'm also an architect. I've been looking through my research work on student perceptions of learning environments and also with staff and how it can affect student and staff actions. I've been working with Elizabeth for quite a while now on a number of different projects, but specifically we've been developing the methodology for the participatory action research with students, which has led to a theory of change. We went through a whole pilot last year. And this year, we've been putting our kind of detailed work in action with undergraduates. I think that's been a long learning journey and it's been really interesting, so I'm very happy to share lessons from that.

Vanessa Worthington:

My name is Vanessa Worthington. I work in undergraduate admissions and outreach as the outreach development Coordinator for programmes that recruit and support prospective students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Elizabeth kindly invited me to participate within the Diversity of Student experience project within the staff-student enquiry given kind of the connections between my work, working with perspective students and what their perceptions of the university are and how we can change them based on what is actually happening for the university, as well as what happens to students once they get here. Do their perceptions change? Do they feel supported? I've worked with Hau Ming. She’s given some great advice in creating the theory of change framework and evaluation for students, for black students who are currently at the university, what they believe the university's commitments are in relation to the access and participation plan. Passing over to Liz.

Liz Polding:

Thank you. My name is Liz Polding. I'm a Public Policy Research officer working on a project on student voices with Elizabeth and Hau Ming. I've had some involvement with the project that's just been described, basically by helping collate materials and so on, and working with everyone on the theories of change. My previous work is primarily focused on social inclusion in legal environments. 

Lauren: 

Great, I think that’s everyone. So tell me, you guys have been working on this project for, what is it, about two years now? 

Elizabeth:

Yes. We had a lot of delays in the project, I think because of the types of approaches we were using in the university and how public we went with the project. We did a lot of scoping work and ended up taking the project plan around a lot of university committees and having more in-depth conversations with colleagues right across the collegiate university. [We wanted] to make sure that the types of methods and approaches we were using were going to be the right ones for our environment here at Oxford and that the kinds of findings that we were hoping to get out of the project were going to be useful and could be acted upon. We started scoping the project nearly two years ago. And we began active data collection about, when was it, at the beginning of last term and that's continued through to this term? Just coming to an end now. But the staff-student enquiry began before that, didn't it, Vanessa? That was at the beginning of 2023? 

Vanessa:

Yes, it feels like a long time ago. 

Elizabeth:

Yes, and then we did the literature reports, which were also two of the streams that were ongoing over the past year. That's another way in which we involved students to contribute to the project, but they were more on their own, tasked with that. So, there's been lots of stuff happening simultaneously, as well as things that happened at different stages in the project. I think the original plan was to go and do everything at the outset, and I'm very grateful that didn't end up happening because it would have been a lot to have done all at once. 

Lauren:

It sounds like it was quite a complex project, so that’s great that you were all able to space everything out a bit. And it sounds like, because of this complexity, there were a lot of different ways that students could engage in the project.

Elizabeth: 

Yes, we had lots of different means of participation for students, and we did that on purpose. There are some students who prefer to remain in the background and on the periphery and don't want to be so directly involved, or don't have time, or who are just shyer and aren't that kind of sort of that ‘out there student’, who doesn't want to commit or have that level of commitment. The different research streams were to do with catering to different types of students and their different needs. I think that was really interesting. I'm glad we did that because we've got lots of different student voices, but at the same time, it's something to take into account of who actually participates in the projects that are more involved. And so I think that the two projects that really involve students in a more direct way were the staff-student enquiry [and the Action Research Advisory Group]. I wonder whether I could hand over to Vanessa to talk a bit more about that. 

Vanessa:

The staff-student enquiry directly asks students in a one-on-one situation what their current experiences are like at the University, particularly of students from diverse and minoritised and underrepresented—whatever adjective you would like to use within this research—from that point of view and from their experience. It was an opportunity for staff members who had connections with a student to, in an anonymous way which was deliberately chosen, [work with that] student to perhaps reveal and declare their experience without fear or consequence or of identification of what that experience might lead to. In terms of the methodology, it was from ‘most significant change methodology’, where staff and students were asked what their most significant change or challenge has been at the University. Upon a review of that information, we had a reading panel where all the reports and came together where [students and] staff were able to identify what they believed to be the most significant change or challenge for that particular student or the University from looking at those experiences.

Lauren: 

Am I correct in saying that your goal in this enquiry, in the student-staff enquiry, was to enable or encourage students and staff to work together to write up a statement describing the student's experiences and the most significant challenge they have faced at the University? Yeah? Okay. And who were these students and staff? 

Vanessa:

The project was announced, released, promoted that this is happening. Then we invited staff to participate and [asked] staff to identify students who they had a close relationship with. Where a staff member didn't have a close relationship with a student, we identified students who had also known about the project to say, 'would you like to talk about this together and discuss it together?' Obviously, it's hard, from our point of view, to say whether or not those conversations were mirrored to students and staff who had a previously established relationship. But I think the quality of the output from that still highlighted the breadth of [those students'] experiences and the importance of asking those questions. What was the experience? And what happened to that particular student or staff member? And I should also add that staff members who participated in asking questions of the students were also invited to reflect on their own experiences: Was the conversation a jumping off point to reflect on what they have done? Or, to reflect as a member of the university, was that experience mirrored or duplicated outside of that particular student that they had a conversation with? 

Elizabeth:

Can I just add to that to say that it was really important that there was some kind of compensation offered. So the staff member took the student out for lunch for an informal conversation based on the prompts that we'd provided them. And that was a tone we were trying to set: that it wasn't too formalised and that students had the opportunity to share in an open way. And then the staff member wrote it up, but with not too much burden on the students. Would that be fair to say?

Vanessa:

Yes. Yes, I would. And that's a really important point that Elizabeth has just made, because it reflects some of the feedback that came out of the Race Equality Task Force. Students felt that there was an overburden on them doing the work, on them providing the output, on them providing their experiences and not being fairly compensated. So, I think that's a really important point to flag up. It was quite onerous on the staff side, looking at the work. But I believe that the students didn't feel that same sense of emotional and then administrative and other elements of burden of sharing their experience. 

Lauren:

Yeah, that's a really interesting approach. It definitely is a student-staff partnership because it is students and staff really co-creating that output, that written-up bit about their experience together. But because staff took on that burden of doing the writing up and then working with students to fine tune it, and because students were compensated for having those conversations in the first place, it was done in a way that reduced the burden on students while still making sure that they had ownership of that final output, of what the goal of the conversation was. That's great. Can I flip to the second project that you guys wanted to talk about which was the theory of change workshop that you ran with students? Can I ask someone to share a bit about that? 

Hau Ming:

The participation Action Research Advisory Group started as a pilot that we did with postgraduates to test the methodology [for the overarching project]. I think at the heart of that project was about researching how we think about the depth of the conversation. It was really developing [ideas] with a group of students, making sure they feel heard, and also thinking through how different methodologies bring out different types of voices and different types of perceptions. What was quite interesting about that process was when we asked at the end which methodology they felt was most effective in capturing student voices, students actually all gravitated towards different methodologies. They felt like those different methodologies tapped into different areas or targeted different areas of their lived experiences. Now, what was interesting about that was thinking about how we go forward, because in terms of staff time and also student time, it's quite difficult. And one theme that came out also quite powerfully was that students felt this type of research really tapped into active engagement versus passive engagement. Students are bombarded often in this type of work because of the APP and thinking about student voices. They're bombarded with surveys. And they immediately said that that was a very passive engagement, and often they do it, but do they really feel heard? Versus an active type of engagement. What we did with the participant action research groups was that we did very quick rapid feedback loops. So, at the end of each workshop, we had a survey that they could give feedback on, and we would rapidly change the methodology for the next workshop. So we were able to make it very dynamic and responsive, so they felt like everything they said we would change for the next workshop onwards. 

Lauren:

That's really interesting. Were those surveys about the way that you worked together in the groups or was it mainly about what you were talking about? 

Hau Ming:

Both. I think we tried to be very responsive to the methodology as well as the content. And I'm sure Elizabeth and Liz and Vanessa will have lots to add to this, but I think, most importantly is to think through how we, in terms of our research, co-create methodology. Often with the staff-student enquiry, what I thought was interesting was how the semi-structured prompts allowed the staff and the student to co-create questions or evolve the questions. And then for what we did in the participatory action research, the way the dynamics worked with the group was [staff] evolved from being leaders at the beginning of the group to becoming listeners by the end of the six weeks, where [the students] created the theory of change. Very often we led discussion in workshop one, but by workshop six, we were asking students to develop questions themselves and they would lead the discussions in the workshop. So it is important to think through how you kind of pass the responsibility and the baton to them. 

Lauren:

Do you have any tips that you would want to share with other people who are trying this approach of how to really pass that baton on? 

Hau Ming:

What was interesting was that as we were formulating and developing and learning from the students, Vanessa actually brought together a pilot black advisory group. So I think Vanessa might have some advice, because I was kind of trying to pass on our lessons learned on to Vanessa. Also because I don't like hearing the sound of my voice too much, Vanessa might be able to give some insight into what she felt was useful when I passed on some of our lessons learnt. 

Vanessa:

I think to have a structure in place of: these are the aims and the objectives. And the use of a theory of change: What is the problem that we're trying to solve and therefore let us structure our engagement with students based on that. I found that really reassuring and helpful: to have a clearly defined structure and an end point or an end goal of what I want to see from engaging with students. And actually, I think that reassured the students to know that there was something that I was being held accountable to or they were being held accountable to. It wasn't just a conversation. Conversations are lovely, but that was what I found exceptionally useful.

Also knowing what is being done elsewhere in the sector. Both Elizabeth and Hau Ming have shared what's going on in Cambridge, what's going across in the states, what they're doing in terms of engaging students as a way to understand the wider context of the university. That was really helpful. And in the feedback—because I've spoken to some of the students following the advisory group, not in the context of the advisory group, just in the other elements of my work—they found that reassuring as well. 

Lauren:

Thank you. Liz, I know you haven't gotten much airtime yet, so are there any takeaways that you want to add to either of the projects? 

Liz:

I think for me one of the key things that came out of what students were saying—apart from stuff that really fed into the theory of change which we've already touched on—is the fact that they felt that the extended period of engagement, with them having a lot more air time and as Hau Ming described moving from leadership into them being leaders, was that they felt very confident. They felt that this was a safe space and that it was appropriate and comfortable for them to share their experiences. And some of the experiences that they shared were quite challenging. Some of them, they described microaggressions and even kind of quite overt aggressions towards them. And that was quite challenging to read, and it must have been a lot more challenging for them to experience. But I think the key thing was that they felt that this was somewhere where they actually could share those kinds of things and feel that by doing that they were contributing to a process which would make things better going forward. A few of them referred to making things better for the people who come after us and genuinely feeling heard in those spaces. So, I thought that was that was quite important. 

Lauren:

That reminds me that I believe you all offered support to students as part of asking them to have these really challenging conversations. Could you speak a bit more about that support that you offered? 

Hau Ming:

Elizabeth should.  

Elizabeth:

We did a risk analysis to think about the kinds of risks involved in asking challenging questions and had long conversations with student counselling and welfare to see what would be the most appropriate things to put in place for students. And one of the things we found by talking to the Department of Psychiatry was that there's a list of supportive services that they'd put together for their "You Flourish" project. So we took that list and we consulted further and adapted it and talked to the harassment advisors and a number of different networks, including peer mentoring networks and resources outside of the university, to try and expand that. We also shared it back with [Psychiatry] so they can make use of our updated [version]. They're constantly evolving, aren't they? These services for students. So all students participating in all streams of the project had access to that list, and we made sure that staff members who were involved were also aware of how to direct students when they were having their conversations. We established a direct point of contact within counselling services, so that students who were experiencing anything could reach out and were made aware of that person who they could talk to if there was a non-urgent enquiry. And we also made ourselves available to students. We just said, ‘if there's anything at all, please get in contact and talk to us’. And because there are a few different [staff] faces—well, at least two—that meant that students could choose who they wanted to speak to or reach out to. And in some of the more passive streams—one I forgot to mention was the Diary student Diaries—I was hearing about quite a lot of disturbing situations, so then I got in contact with students. I just said, ‘don't forget we've got this person who you can talk to and this is the support on offer’. In the participant information sheets that were given to given to students to obtain their consent, we also told them what they needed to do if they had an appeal or a complaint to make, where we signposted the university procedures and services that were already in place.  

This is all something that you really need to think carefully about: how to help students who are who are struggling or sharing their experiences. I know there are some conversations with counselling services on this. They do actually offer a training course on that, and it's becoming increasingly popular. So, there are resources so that staff can get skilled up on how to talk to students who need that kind of support. But some kind of duty or care and ethics of engaging with students is just key. And I think it's something that we really need to develop even more. 

Hau Ming:

I would agree with Elizabeth's point about the ethics of care for work like this, because I think we have to. And students feel a lot more reassured about engaging in work like this if there's a very strong ethics of care in place even before we start. 

Elizabeth:

And as Liz said, we did try to establish that environment. So that’s the first thing, the most important thing, just having that in play. 

Hau Ming:

One thing that Elizabeth and I did ask the students was, in this type of work, whether it was important for them to have facilitators who are also from underrepresented groups. And we've had a lot of feedback on that. They felt it was. I suppose they felt they could be more open and didn't have any explaining to do because we shared experiences. And Vanessa, you also did that with your group, didn't you? And I think for students, it's much easier for them to share their experiences if they don't feel like they have to explain too much about why they feel the way they do. 

Lauren:

Yeah, it was a great approach how with the staff-student enquiry staff were invited to speak with students they already had a connection with. That made sure that the trust was already there and that wasn't a possible barrier to students and staff co-creating and working in partnership. Thank you so much everyone for sharing all these experiences. Before I wrap up, is there any other things that have popped anyone's mind that you want to share on all of this? 

Liz:

One of the things that I really got from this was that the students were really glad this was happening. They really felt that this was an important thing for them to be doing and that they were glad that it was happening. They felt that they were genuinely driving change, which was very encouraging and really made them feel that they wanted to continue their participation. 

Hau Ming:

Yes, my last comment would be how do we shift from this place where, often I'm in committees where, the first thing they'll ask is, ‘What's your participant rate? What's your survey response?’ How do we make sure that committees or higher level strategic approaches do not look at this as anecdotal data? And how do we shift the conversation to that it is really important to have the breadth and the depth? And that's why this research needs to continue, because we are capturing experiences, the diversity of experience. But how can we make sure these experiences are taken very seriously? 

Lauren:

That’s a great point, and I think it gets into conversations that I’ve heard around student-staff partnerships and student representation. Student-staff partnerships are really about that depth and asking students to speak from their own personal experiences with their own identities about what they think should be done about whatever your aim is. Whereas in student representation, student representatives wear a different hat, one of trying to speak across all students’ experiences and identities. So [in student representation] you get that breadth, but really without the depth. And student-staff partnership and student representation really complement each other with that depth and breadth. But, Hau Ming as you were saying, how do we make sure that student-staff partnerships and the in-depth work that we do with individual students are valued alongside the breadth we get from student representative work?

Elizabeth:

Lauren, I know you've heard of it already, but for the for the sake of the toolkit, we've got the public policy challenge, the Student Voices Project, coming up. And that really is looking at the diversity of different student voices. And this question of representation is one that we'll be looking at, as is the question of evidence: What type of evidence are student voices? And we'll be interrogating that a bit more over the course of the year, so it would be great to update what we're sharing with you today when we've had findings from that project, too. 

Lauren:

That would be really interesting. This work definitely is going to continue and evolve. And as a plug to anyone listening [or reading]—well anyone listening to this [or reading this] will have already accessed the Student-Staff Partnerships Toolkit, because that's where this will be—but this of course will be an evolving resource that will hopefully change in line with our updated understandings of how to best work with students and make positive change. So, thank you so much to everyone, well all four of you, for coming on and sharing this project with me. I hope that other people are able to listen in on this and really take some learnings and move forward with it.