Self Portraits and Perpetual Motion: The Student Experience of Informed Choice and Feedback

1. Self Portraits and Perpetual Motion: The Student Experience of Informed Choice and Feedback Jennie Blake, Research Associate University of Manchester Val Wass (Principal Investigator) University of Keele HEARing Student Voices: developing the pedagogy to reflect achievements across the student experience This project has been funded by the 2009 NTFS Projects Funding strand

2. Mindset • Carol Dweck—Stanford University • Theories of Intelligence • Entity: intelligence and skills are unable to be changed (a “natural” talent) • Incremental: intelligence and skills can be changed by practice and work • Mindset • Fixed: related to entity—”there’s no point as I can’t use it (feedback) • Growth: related to incremental—forward planning and natural use of resources.

3. No Map and a Broken Compass “No one’s ever said, ‘Look, here’s the underlying structure of what we want to give you, this is why we’re doing all of this...’ That’s never happened.” (efg1)

4. First Place to Look: Personal Experience vs. University Resources • Students tend to use non-University resources first and most frequently • “Google!” (Sphai) • “[The internet’s] the first step.” (Pfg1) • You have to rely on friends that you’ve made. (Efg1) • This could imply that they are not benefiting from the expertise the degree programmes offer. In addition, they are spending extensive amounts of time searching for resources instead of using them. • Difficulty deciding which resources are most trustworthy/useful • Other than [friends], I think I’d be struggling, really, to work out what’s good and what’s not. (Reengi) • “My [second year academic advisor]…he didn’t know anything about me..so it was just a waste of time” (Mixed focus group, Geography, ln 153) • In this case, students have to go through a process of guessing, or trial and error, to figure out the best sources—unless they reach outside of the process and go for “extra” meetings or assistance

5. Another Direction: Communication/understanding the hierarchy • Who to ask/Where to look-- • I was told to email my academic advisor, and he emailed back and told me he wasn’t actually working for the university... (mfg2e) • No university-based starting point—which throws them back to non-University sources • Reliance on an underlying structure— • You’ve got to email about ten different people to get something. (mfg1p) • The unanswerable question: • No. This is what we get in our seminars, ‘Is everyone okay with the essays then?’...Because we have to be, don’t we? What else are we going to say? (efg1) • With the University based resources useful only inconsistently (and often focused on fixed rather than growth mindsets) students are forced to solely rely on the “personal experience” on the compass. In effect, students spend time searching for what they need to learn instead of actually learning.

6. Feedback: Fuel for the learning environment

7. Definitions: “Fixing” the mark or “Growing” as a student? • I always think of exams, and it’s like an evaluation of your performance on exams (gfg1) (f) • We’re tested on something, and they mark it, and we receive it back. (pfg1) (f) • They tell you, like, whatever you did wrong and how you could improve it (hpharmi) (g) • Someone having read whatever you’ve written and critically assessed it and given it back to you. (efg1) (f) • Essay feedback, so to help improve on your next essay (efg1) (g)

8. If it’s not pushing you forward, it’s holding you back • There’s nothing I can do I can do, if that’s the mark I’ve got, so... (mfg1e) • And that’s it, [the feedback] just disappears and you never see it again. (pfg1) • And it means, I feel like as I’m writing these essays that are going towards my degree this year, I’m writing them with this blind idea of what’s a good essay.(efg1) • Because after you’ve done the essay, you’ve already got your mark, even if you get feedback after that, if you’ve done really badly, there’s nothing you can do about it. (efg1) • We don’t have the module again—can’t really use [the feedback from it] (hphai)

9. Trying to get somewhere new:powering the loop • We need someone to go... Look here, I can see that you keep doing this, let’s do some practice on this. Something that you only get through one on one. (efg2) • I think it would be good also to have..what you are doing right. (gfg1) • We never know if we’ve reached [the skills] (pfg1) • …there's no point in receiving feedback if it doesn’t include, if it doesn’t help you to do it better the next time. So if it doesn’t help you to better yourself then it's not really feedback. (gfg1)

10. Self-Portrait:knowing who you are and how to find your way Yeah, we don’t really get... It would be possible to do the whole..go through the whole semester, and no one would have a clue whether you were doing well, or anything. You could go through the whole semester and not... know anything at the end of it.” (mfg1p) You can just feel completely anonymous (efg1)

11. Isolation:navigating without support • I got an email saying “You’re supposed to have scheduled a meeting with your tutor”...and so I did...and she said “Oh I’m sorry, I’ve got no idea who you are; I didn’t know you were supposed to schedule a meeting”...So there seems to be a complete breakdown of communication...and I’ve got a lot of friends who said the same. (English, Interview) • “There are so many of them… and it’s so anonymous, that I think it does create anxiety, and I think it creates… a… sort of short temper. And we, on the other hand, don’t get to know them very well either, and I think that doesn’t help. So, exactly, having a space, and having a kind of identity to the department.” (Engl, Staff, fg) • My first year, personal tutor was really easy to get along with... my one for the second year...he didn’t know anything about me...so it was just a waste of time. (mfg2)

12. Community:understanding where you can go with what you have to work with • “…there are so many different people you can talk to because you've got all different information coming in and then obviously it's up to yourself to make the choice " (geo, Focus Group, ln 18) • Yeah, and if we’re aware then you can start making answers and know how to target and if you’ve not got the skill you can go and actively do something to get that skill and improve yourself. (pfg1) • “But, I think, like, the more you put in yourself, the more you get out of it.” (Mixed Focus Group 1, geo, ln 412) • “But I think…we have a lot…the resources we have are quite good. It’s just knowing what we actually need to find. So again it falls back onto the weaknesses and strengths in your own resources, so once you know what your weaknesses are you have pretty much most of the resources to go yourself and dig in.”(geo, Focus Group, ln 100)

13. Unexpected Journeys • Both students and staff expressed gratitude that they were able to see concrete results in response to their suggestions • Students offering to take more responsibility as resources become easier to use. • Clear next steps to working within the Academic Advisor/Advisee relationship