Abstract:

Nottingham Business School is at the forefront of personalisation within UK higher education. Personalisation entails supporting our students to ‘be the best they can be’ and empowering them, as self-regulated learners, to engage meaningfully and make the most of the varied opportunities available. This paper reports findings of a pilot study of students’ lived experiences. The resulting insights into student journeys that have the potential to inform personalisation at operational, strategic and policy levels.

A concern of personalisation, as noted by Jones et al (2019:1217) is that it “allows good students to do better but has less effect on the achievements of poor students. Personalisation benefits people who are already quite successful”. Set in the context of widening participation and the UK government’s Access and Participation agenda, this paper aims to understand the personalised learning experiences of our students, anticipating that students do not all travel on a straightforward journey, and their lived experiences vary significantly. Some students may define success as a first-class degree, comprehensive CV and work experience, whilst for others it may be completing the course, attending on campus, or engaging with peers. We are simply not aware of the varied journeys that students undertake or the impact of interventions. By way of evidence, we know that 40% of second year students didn’t attend their first personal tutor meeting. These lost academic hours could be directed to more effective interventions if we had a comprehensive understanding of what support is valued by students at various stages of their journey.

Findings from this pilot stage provide initial insights into how less engaged undergraduate students navigate their learning. Using a co-creation, collaborative approach, the research methodology uses peer students to conduct data collection through interviews. It is argued that recounting their ‘lived experience’ through interviews with peers generates rich picture insights and more honest, authentic accounts than is likely to be achieved in interviews with academics. This pilot stage has captured insights into a dozen individual students’ journeys. The longer-term project aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of student attitudes, behaviours and experiences. These student insights will inform the development of a more flexible models of support that map to differing student journeys and maximise the impact on students’ individual lived experiences.

Firstly, the study gained insights from 12 less engaged students, a notoriously difficult group to engage. Secondly, the rich picture insights have been generated, surfacing new aspects of students lived experiences such as the complexity of social connections within peer groups, barriers to attending taught sessions and the pressure of family and academic expectations. Thirdly, student accounts produced by student researchers are effective at capturing the student voice. Carefully crafted to preserve anonymity, they resonate and amplify aspects of less engaged students’ experiences. Examples will be shared during the session.

This pilot research has revealed unique authentic insights into student journeys, which can inform personalisation at an operational and strategic level. This pilot phase has demonstrated the viability of peer to peer methodology. Next steps will be to design a larger study, developing and testing a typology of student journeys.

Keywords:

Personalisation, personal tutoring, lived student experience, collaboration.