Curriculum Enhancement Internships 2023-24

Project Leader

Tina Forrester, Legal and Governance Service, Paula Baines, Production Unit, Liverpool Screen School

Project Team

Luiza Darolti, Tess Carter, Celso Fonseca Rosa Cardoso

Dr Sarah Haynes, Liverpool Screen School

Summary

This was a collaborative student focused project aimed at building on the success of the campaign last year by continuing to significantly influence the culture of privacy and digital security wellbeing and awareness throughout Liverpool John Moores University.

The project’s intended outcomes were as follows:

1. Improve the digital wellbeing of our students by raising awareness of the value of their personal data and the negative impacts it could have on their lives if they don’t take steps to protect it.
2. Help students develop the insight, skills and attitudes necessary to practice good digital citizenship during their time at university and beyond, equipping them with digital well-being skills and cyber awareness that can sustain them and promote the development of their resilience and academic self-esteem.
3. Create a sustainable culture on campus of safely and responsibly using digital technologies to reduce the potential for data breaches through cybercrime, helping students develop the insight, skills, attitudes, and values necessary to shape a sustainable future.

The Project centred around a campaign of three new videos, produced by and directed towards our students, delivering key messages on digital security wellbeing. Students from the Business and Screen schools worked on different aspects of the campaign, which was overseen by the university’s Data Protection Officer. The videos centred on scenarios deemed relevant to all students, such as phishing emails, passwords, and 2-factor/multi-factor authentication, so that information would be pertinent and accessible to everyone on campus. The project involved the creation of new posters containing the bespoke LJMU seagull mascot, who also featured in the new videos and posters. The aim of creating new content is to keep the subject of digital security alive on campus for years to come. Using the mascot as a baseline, the university can now easily create further resources to distribute to students each year, embedding digital wellness and awareness within the culture of the university.

Project Methodology

The Data Protection Officer is the client for this project.

In the second semester, students in the Business School, as part of the curriculum through the Business Clinic, built on the research carried out by last year’s Law and Business students. They distributed questionnaires to students to gather information on their attitudes towards privacy and security. They also asked for view on the campaign and what they thought was and was not working, as well as information on which marketing techniques the students might consider most impactful. They remained in frequent contact with the Data Protection Officer via regular meetings to ensure the Project was moving in the right direction. The students were also supported on a regular basis by the Business School as part of their curriculum. They developed several ideas on methods of disseminating the campaign’s message, merchandise, and social media marketing techniques.

This is work informed the main section of the CE Project in the third semester, which was to create new graphics and video content to deliver key messages on digital privacy to students. The Screen School students scripted, acted, filmed and edited three videos with a distinctly darker theme than those produced by students last year, as it was felt that this might be more effective in grabbing the attention of passers-by. The videos once again contained the unique LJMU privacy and security mascot. They were filmed in such a way that they could be easily ‘clipped’ – a suggestion by one of the Screen School students – into short, several-second bursts, appropriate for social media should we want to post on those platforms. In keeping with this darker theme, the students also produced three new posters, all containing the seagull mascot but inspired by popular horror films. Creating videos containing easily recognisable situations and without spoken dialogue ensured they would hold universal appeal and be accessible to all students, irrespective of background. The Screen School students attended Students at the Heart Conference 2024 with the team to talk about their work on the project and show two of the new videos.

Project Outcomes

Cybercrime affects everyone. The significance of online security should not be understated – it’s important to our students not only when they are here with us at LJMU but also in their private and working lives.

Almost every online transaction and interaction they have involves sharing personal data. This project will enhance their digital wellbeing by raising awareness of the value of their personal data and the negative impacts it could have on their lives if they don’t take steps to protect it.

The project aims to advance students’ understanding of privacy and digital security, as teaching students how to stay safe online individually helps protect the university from potential data breaches which could affect the entire student body. This means that not only does the Project make LJMU’s students resilient to the challenges of digital security, but it also protects the University from data breaches which could be brought about by human error.

Because the campaign has been created for students, by students with input and guidance from university staff, it reflects a shared vision for LJMU on the importance of digital wellness and privacy. It was hugely beneficial to have students work with us on this Project because the students, as the target demographic of the digital security awareness campaign, had a greater insight into how best to communicate and engage with their fellow students and what key messages and marketing strategies would be most impactful. Our students researched their own cohorts’ attitudes to cyber security and exchanged results to arrive at solutions appropriate for the diverse community of LJMU students.

One of the most beneficial outcomes of this project is that it has created long-term marketing tools which will keep the subject of digital awareness alive on the LJMU campus for years to come –shaping a sustainable future for students. Using the established privacy and security mascot as a baseline, the university can now easily create further posters, videos, leaflets, and potentially other resources to distribute to students each year, sustainably embedding digital wellness well within the culture of the university.

Impact and Transferability

The benefits of this project for our students will extend beyond their time with us at LJMU, not just in the short term but for many years to come. The campaign will raise their awareness of potential cyberthreats so that they can take steps to protect themselves online, which is valuable information they can carry forwards into their personal and professional lives. It will increase awareness of how their actions could impact on the university as a business and on any business, they may work for through understanding why privacy and digital security is important.

We do not want digital wellness to be something which is mentioned to students briefly upon enrolment and then never re-addressed or tackled only via dull and uninspiring online content. Instead, as part of our continuous development of the University’s privacy and security culture, we are striving to be innovative and creative to support the wider student experience for years to come, creating a campaign which retains a permanent presence on campus.

Good digital citizenship is crucial for any organisation, and by protecting our students as individuals this Project also helps to protect the university itself. The research carried out by our Business students concluded that most cyber-attacks begin from simple human error, meaning that if students are not educated on cybersecurity, it can compromise the safety and security of the entire university. The research further concluded that some of the biggest weak spots within the student body where digital security is concerned are unsecure/weak passwords, a casual approach to the use of public computers and networks, and a lack of confidence in identifying phishing scams. By focusing the campaign on these areas, it is hoped that students will absorb this information and, as a result, minimize the risk of a cyberattacks affecting the rest of the student body and the university. In addition to this, provocative and comical marketing techniques, such as the implementation of a villainous privacy and security mascot, have deliberately been used to spark conversation, intrigue, and social media discussions. The idea is that as students begin discussing privacy and security as a result of these marketing tactics, inevitably it will increase staff awareness on the topic too, benefitting everybody in the wider university community.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

A lot of stress is generated for students and others through issues with privacy online and data security. By providing this education for digital wellness, in the form of video content, the project will promote good digital citizenship to the wider LJMU community and beyond. Helping students stay safe in their personal lives and employment when they graduate, as well as during their time studying at LJMU.

Our students are at the heart of the LJMU community, and we are keen to encourage them to become responsible digital citizens. As the University develops a new and innovative digital culture to support student learning and the wider student experience, this project will help all students to enjoy this culture safely, equipping them with cyber awareness to increase their digital knowledge and wellbeing, and positioning the importance of privacy as a strong social value.

The benefits of this project for our students will extend beyond their time with us at LJMU, not just in the short term but for many years to come. Our ambition is not only to support them in their academic careers but also to equip them with the tools they need to flourish in their future careers and in their personal lives, all within an increasingly digital world.

Our overall aim is to firmly embed the importance of privacy and digital security in the minds of our staff and students so that it becomes an intrinsic part of our university’s culture, as we recognise the fundamental importance of digital wellbeing in driving positive social outcomes.

Next steps and future developments

The videos will be available to all students on our dedicated Privacy and Security pages of the website, shown on screens around university buildings and released on YouTube.

The privacy and security mascot attended both Freshers Fair and ReFreshers in 2023 and received a lot of positive attention, so we are keen for this to continue in order to increase visibility around the university.

There is a lot of potential to expand this even further and to engage other students in campaign ideas. We would particularly like to work with Drama students to create a jingle for the campaign - all of this is designed to be deliberately provocative, comical, and large-scale to truly capture the attention of students and drive home the campaign’s important messages on digital privacy. The hope is that by continuing to utilise this bespoke mascot in the long run, the campaign’s important messages on digital privacy will be kept alive on campus for many years to come, ensuring it becomes an intrinsic part of the student culture at LJMU and benefits not just the students initially involved in the project, but all students from all backgrounds.

Project Leader

Dr Ivo Siekmann, School of Computer Science and Mathematics

Project Team

Yanira Gonzalez, Mohamed Ibrahim, Aisha Jirde, Lucy Lavery, Calli Whitehead

Professor Sandra Ortega-Martorell, School of Computing and Mathematics

Dr James Baker, School of Computing and Mathematics

Project Focus

Education for Wellbeing and Education for Sustainable Development

Summary

At first glance, there seems to be no urgent need for decolonising mathematics curricula. Mathematics is commonly taught in a way that one could easily get the impression that mathematics would be perfectly fine without mathematicians – the subject is usually presented as an abstract construct of ideas where the individuals who came up with these ideas hardly play any role. Yet, when looking at the names that most of the content of the mathematical syllabus of an undergraduate course is attributed to – Riemann integral, Fourier transform, Gaussian distribution, Poincaré conjecture – it shows that, overall, mathematics is presented as the collective achievement of (mostly) men who lived in a small number of European countries between the 17th and 19th century. Moreover, many applications and a large proportion of the data sets presented have a strong Western focus and fail to account for the challenges of a globalised society.

The project aimed to address the Eurocentric bias of the current mathematics curriculum by producing additional ready-to-use teaching material comprising biographical details of non-European mathematicians, ethnomathematics as well as approaches for analysing and addressing the consequences of colonialism. Five students independently researched topics led by their own interests and produced ready-to-use teaching material that will be integrated in the mathematics curriculum starting from the following academic year. We also recorded video interviews with students on different mathematicians from non-European backgrounds that we plan to make available online. We expect that the new material produced in this project will motivate lecturers to develop further ideas for better emphasising the cultural and historical context of their modules. We will gather feedback from colleagues and module evaluations to assess how successful the new content proves to be in practice.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024 Presentation

Project Methodology

One motivation for this project was an article in the journal Nature about various examples how decolonisation of mathematics had been implemented at different institutions. Inspired by a decolonisation project carried out at the University of Durham, the students worked mostly individually on topics led by their own interests. In regular meetings of the whole group, it was discussed how topics researched by the students could be integrated in specific modules of the mathematics programme and how the material could be best presented. The material was shared by the students with the whole group via MS Teams. By the end of the project the student had produced slides for different modules of the mathematics programme. We also recorded interviews with students who presented the biographies of the Nigerian mathematicians Chike Obi, James Ezeilo, Olabisi Ugbebor as well as the Indian mathematician Srinavasa Ramanujan.

Project Outcomes

During the course of this project, the students produced teaching material that will be integrated into specific modules of our mathematics programmes starting from the academic year 2024/25. Examples for new topics include:

• Biographies of non-European mathematicians:
  • Nigerian mathematicians Chike Obi, James Ezeilo and Olabisi Ugbebor
  • Srinavasa Ramanujan
• Ethnomathematics, for example, number systems in different cultures such as the knot-based Quipu
• Fractals in African architecture and art
• Mathematical aspects of calculating reparations for the impact of slavery

A few of these examples were presented by the students at the Students at the Heart Conference 2024.

The key feature of our project was that all activities were student-led. This was very important to us for two reasons. First, we believe that students have a unique perspective when it comes to identifying how current teaching shows cultural bias – on the one hand due to their own backgrounds, on the other hand because they have a less constrained view than lecturers who have internalised disciplinary biases to a much larger extent. Second, because all topics were selected by students, we expect that the new material will have a better chance of being seen as relevant to decolonisation as well as attractive and interesting than if they had been identified by a lecturer without student input.

Impact and Transferability

The main goal of our project was to produce teaching material that could be directly used for specific modules of the mathematics programme. We expect that this will motivate lecturers to look for more ideas for presenting mathematics with consideration of the cultural and historical context.

The methodology of our project can be easily transferred to other disciplines because the approach is not specific to mathematics as a subject; the project leaders will be happy to share experiences and assist programme teams that plan to follow a similar approach to decolonising the curriculum.

The video interviews with students who present their research into the biographies of different mathematicians will be made available online.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing and Education for Sustainable Development

Education for Wellbeing: A considerable challenge for students from ethnic minorities is the difficulty of finding role models in their subject – this was confirmed by several students who worked on this project who said that they had difficulties identifying with the mathematics course because they had not been introduced to mathematicians during her studies from a non-European background and they were not aware of other people from their own community who had studied mathematics. Through our project we have begun addressing this issue by including examples of non-European mathematicians in our curriculum and by providing historical context demonstrating that various mathematical ideas have appeared independently in different cultures. Removing the misconception that mathematics is an exclusively European activity is an important component in the effort of boosting the self-confidence of students from a non-European background.

Education for Sustainable Development: An equally important aspect in the conception of this project was to understand the impact and analyse approaches for addressing the consequences of colonialism. One example investigated in this project was to analyse proposals for calculating reparations for the impact of slavery. Further work in this direction could include health and income inequalities across different ethnicities or the impact of climate change on the southern hemisphere.

Next steps and future developments

Most of the material developed in this project is focussed on mathematics in different cultural contexts which will contribute towards Education for Wellbeing. Within the time frame of the project, it proved to be difficult to develop examples that explore and work towards addressing consequences of colonialism which will contribute towards Education for Sustainable Development. The project team hopes that the material developed in this project will motivate lecturers in the department to produce further examples of their own. Different opportunities for continuing the work beyond the duration of the curriculum enhancement project have also been discussed. However, how successful the new teaching material will prove to be in practice can only be assessed after it has been integrated in the curriculum. The project team will gather opinions from colleagues who will use the material as part of their modules in the upcoming academic year. Moreover, the impact on the module evaluation question “To what extent does the module help you to understand the contributions that people from different communities and backgrounds have made to the development of the subject area?” will be monitored. We plan to make recordings of student interviews on the biographies of different mathematicians available online.

Project Leader

Dr Claire Hanlon, School of Psychology

Project Team

Elizabeth Coen, Harvey Stanway

Dr Emma Ashworth, Dr Dave Moore, Professor Pooja Saini and Bethany Donaghy

Summary

Research has shown that autistic students face additional barriers transitioning into university (e.g., sensory challenges, uncertainty associated with academic expectations), and poorer mental health outcomes compared to their neurotypical peers. This may impact autistic students’ ability to fulfil their potential at university. Indeed, autistic students are more likely to drop out of university compared to non-autistic students. Supporting autistic students during periods of transition into, and throughout their chosen programme of undergraduate study, could promote improved mental health via delivery of meaningful, targeted support and improve partnership.

Consistent with LJMU’s commitment to providing inclusive learning opportunities in learning and teaching excellence, this study aimed to explore autistic student’s experiences of transitioning into university as well as transitions from level 4 to 6, and the perceived impact this has upon their mental health. Interns conducted eleven one-to-one semi-structured interviews with LJMU undergraduate students. Findings highlight autistic students perceived some positives associated with transitioning into LJMU, and through their degree programme. For example, students were aware of where to seek support (including disability and mental health support) and, when accessed, support provision was perceived as helpful. Yet, although aware of where to seek support from, they perceived this to be inaccessible and many students expressed a preference to seek support from alternative support services with which they had an established rapport. Further, disability support was perceived as universal, and it was perceived this needs to be tailored to better suit individual needs and preferences. Currently, the study team are preparing to submit a paper of the findings to a peer review journal. Work remains to be done to improve autistic student experiences of transitions into LJMU and through their degree programme and it is also hoped that recommendations developed from the study findings could inform LJMU policy for supporting autistic students.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024 Presentation

Project Methodology

The project interns each contributed to the follow study tasks:

1. The development of research materials including a semi-structured interview schedule and recruitment poster.
2. Recruitment of 11 autistic students studying several programmes across the University.
3. Conducted eleven one-to-one, semi-structured interviews either online or in-person.
4. Analysis of interview data.
5. Presentation of preliminary findings at the SATH conference 2024.
6. Preparation of a journal article for submission to a per-reviewed journal.

Project Outcomes

Data analyses are on-going, but some preliminary findings are reported below.

1. Several facilitators corresponding to perceived positive transitions experienced by autistic students into LJMU and through the programme of study were identified including an awareness among students of where to seek academic, disability and mental health support within LJMU and positive experiences were reported among participants who had accessed these.
2. Additionally, several barriers corresponding to perceived negative transitions experienced by autistic students into LJMU and through their programme of study were identified such as despite an awareness of where to seek support within LJMU, participants did not feel able to access the support and expressed a preference to seek support from trusted external sources (e.g., GP services).
3. Recommendations for improving autistic student experiences of transitions were also discussed such as the creation of a neurodivergent specific/inclusive social community that does not feel forced, raising neurodivergent-inclusive visibility /representation within LJMU, and building understanding of the double empathy problem among staff and students at LJMU.

Both student interns made invaluable contributions to this study. They brought with them a sense of relatability among participants as peer researchers, which was important for rapport building during interviews. Also, they were both passionate for ensuring authenticity to autistic student experiences during the entire study process including recruitment and data analyses, and to ensure that autistic student voices and experiences are heard beyond the research team.

Impact and Transferability

Findings of this project have the potential to positively influence autistic students experience and mental health wellbeing during their time at LJMU, and these are transferable across the University. Implementation of the study recommendations could improve autistic student experiences during transition periods and promote mental wellbeing, which in turn, could improve retention of autistic students at LJMU. For example, heightening visibility of autistic and autistic staff/autistic staff allies could bridge accessibility to student disability and mental health support services, especially among students awaiting diagnosis and/or who do not have in place established support networks. Upon presenting the study findings at SATH24 it is clear there is a passion and drive among LJMU staff and students alike to improve neurodivergent student higher education experiences at LJMU. There is therefore the potential to build cross-school collaborations, something the research team is currently discussing. Recommendations developed through the present study also have potential to benefit the wider student community, not just autistic students and if implemented, could contribute to an inclusive transitioning into, and throughout, LJMU. However, impact depends upon support of senior management teams within individual schools across the University.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

Autistic university students are susceptible to poorer mental health outcomes compared to non-autistic students. While there is a paucity of research in this area, mental health difficulties and lack of support has been implicated within the research for increased drop out rates observed among autistic students. Findings from the present project highlight some positives and negatives in experiences that further understanding of autistic students’ experiences of transition into higher education and through the levels of their degree programme and the impact this has upon their mental wellbeing. This could inform development of targeted initiatives to mental wellbeing and improve autistic students completion rates on their chosen programme; thus improving their student experience and academic health by:

1. Development of bespoke disability support tailored to individual needs.
2. Co-production of LJMU placement policy with autistic students, for autistic students, to ensure transfer and adequacy of reasonable adjustment provision.
3. Development of accessible and acceptable wellbeing support provision for autistic students that is tailored to their needs and preferences.
4. Development of mandatory staff training that improves understanding and compassionate nurturing of autistic students’ academic experiences.
5. Within the spirit of “you’ve got to see it to be it”, visibility of autistic staff and students and allies of autism among the LJMU community.

It is also hope that implementation of recommendations could be beneficial for different neurodiversity’s within LJMU.

Next steps and future developments

Next steps include submitting the study findings in the form a peer-reviewed journal article. Disseminating the study findings in this way could advance knowledge in this under-researched area and inform practice within HE. With additional support (including resourcing and funding), it is hoped that the recommendations made within this study could be implemented and evaluated as a pilot, with a view to inform good practice across the University.

Project Leaders

Dr Andrea Livesey, School of Humanities and Social Science and Dr Clare Maxwell, School of Public and Allied Health

Project Team

Olga Machado-Le Gal (OM), Gina Chapman, Eden Woodcock, Emily Atkinson

Sarah McDonald and Georgina Keaney, School of Public and Allied Health

Summary

Recent reports on Black maternal mortality rates have demonstrated that Black women in the UK are almost four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, with their babies three times more likely to die than white babies. These statistics are echoed in the US and the Caribbean. This transatlantic context has a long history.

Nineteenth Century teachings on race told professional physicians that Black women were less susceptible to pain, that they were natural childbearers and feeders, and that they had less of an emotional connection to their children. This racialized knowledge, emerging during the era of transatlantic slavery, produced harmful racist tropes that continued to be espoused in medical literature throughout most of the twentieth century. An understanding of the links between past narratives developed around characteristics of Black women and how they impact present Black maternal health outcomes is needed to inform maternity care. Education around this subject was missing from the LJMU midwifery programme and meetings with LJMU Black midwifery students revealed it was something that student midwives were keen to incorporate into their curriculum to promote inclusivity, empathy and to go some way to addressing mythologies of race for new midwives.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024

Project Methodology

Our project aimed to explore links between historical narratives derived from transatlantic slavery and current outcomes of black women in maternity services.

Our project outcomes were to:

• produce student-led curricula resources/interventions to be embedded into the LJMU midwifery programme.
• present at the Students at the Heart conference on how interdisciplinary collaboration between Humanities and Sciences can aid decolonization.
• provide an opportunity to feed into the LJMU and Slavery Project report, led by Dr Andrea Livesey

Four undergrad student interns were recruited from the LJMU Midwifery (x2) and History (x2) programmes to lead the project supported by the project leads and project team. The student interns applied for project ethical approval and developed recruitment materials in the form of participant information sheets, a project poster advert and a PowerPoint about the project. The interns also developed focus group schedule questions for the focus groups which would be used to collect data. The interns received training around managing focus groups from the project leads and attended the Black Maternal Health Conference in London, funded by their individual programmes:

Project Leaders

Dr Jayne Erlam and Ester Ragonese, School of Justice Studies

Project Team

Bassam Hamadeh, School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment

Georgia Marriott-Smith, School of Public and Allied Health

Summary

This project aimed to establish how students on non-standard degree programmes experienced personal tutoring within Liverpool John Moore’s University, with the information gathered helping to influence the personal tutor framework, which is currently under review. The project aimed to understand what the expectations were of a personal tutor on these programmes, and how competing priorities between the university and employer, and duplication of supervision and support systems, impacted on the students.

Students currently on the Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP) programme were the voices of students on non-standard degree programmes, with PQiP staff being recruited to provide the viewpoint from a personal tutor perspective.

The project consisted of three stages of data collection. Firstly, a survey was created and shared with PQiP students via Microsoft Forms. 84 completed surveys were returned. Secondly, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 PQiP staff members. Finally, a focus group was held with 4 PQiP students.

It is intended that the report created will be utilised by LJMU to help them revise the personal tutoring policy framework. The desire of the research team is to have a separate section within the policy which can speak to non-standard programmes and assist personal tutors in navigating their role within these programmes. The report will also provide broad recommendations which can inform educator/student interactions across conventional courses and LJMU more widely. Recommendations could be shared with other Higher Education (HE) institutions as best practice.

The research team are currently looking at plans to deliver this to the Probation Regions who employ the PQiP students to help them understand how best to move forward in a collaborative effort with the university to prevent support being duplicated. Further research should be conducted with students from other non-standard degree programmes to allow the findings to be more representative.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024

Project Methodology

The project consisted of three stages, with the data from the different stages being collated to present in-depth analysis.

The first stage of data collection was the distribution of an online survey. The research team together designed the online survey, which in its final draft consisted of 19 questions across 3 areas. The questions included both open-ended questions and closed questions, with a likert response being required for 5 questions. The questionnaire was created using Microsoft Forms, with a link being sent to all current PQiP students. Roughly there are around 200 students currently on the programme. The online survey generated 84 responses which is roughly 42% of all students. The research team considered this a very good response rate, especially considering the time constraints of the students due to them working full time in addition to completing the programme. The student intern was involved in all conversations surrounding the questions to be asked in the online survey and held the responsibility of creating the online survey and monitoring its responses. The student intern ultimately took control of this stage of the data collection and managed the task tremendously.

The second stage of data collection involved conducting semi-structured interviews with all members of the PQiP team (aside from staff working on the research project). In total, 5 members of staff were interviewed, with interviews ranging from 25 minutes to 60 minutes. 17 questions were posed to staff, however due to the nature of the interviews being semi-structured, staff were able to dictate what direction the interview went and provide additional information around the area, that they did not feel the questions covered. This stage of data collection was considered very important as it was vital to collect the experiences and opinions of individuals who are currently personal tutors on a non-standard degree programme. By including personal tutors’ experiences, a more holistic view of personal tutoring has been created, with two different perspectives being explored. The student intern assisted a member of the research team in conducting the interviews and was responsible for the transcription of the interviews.

The final stage of data collection was a focus group, whereby 4 students from the PQiP programme met online to discuss the questionnaire questions in more detail. Participant numbers were disappointingly low, considering the number of PQiP learners, but good quality data were elicited. During the focus group, question prompts, designed with the student intern, were offered to students via Microsoft Teams. Students took turns to raise a virtual hand to offer responses which generated wider discussion. With participants’ agreement the focus group, which lasted 30 minutes, was recorded and then transcribed and anonymised. The student intern merged responses and themes elicited via the focus group with questionnaire and staff interview.

Project Outcomes

As the project is still ongoing, it is difficult at the moment to pinpoint outcomes and outputs from the project, however there are plans for what the research team would like the outcomes of the project to be, and these are as follows:

1. The report to be utilised by Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) in the revising of the personal tutor policy framework. It is the desire of the research team that the framework will include a separate section within the policy which can speak to non-standard programmes and assist personal tutors in navigating their role within these programmes. For this to become a reality, the research team would like to speak to staff at LJMU involved in revising the framework and present our findings and explain what could be included, and why this would be beneficial.
2. The report to be provided to personal tutors throughout LJMU, as there will be a set of broad recommendations included in the report which will help to inform educator/student interactions across conventional courses and LJMU more widely. It is hoped that the report will be of benefit to all personal tutors regardless of course or school, as it is essential for personal tutors to hear the voices of students and understand their experiences if practice is to ever improve.
3. Recommendations could be shared with other Higher Education Institutions as best practice. Thereby benefitting students and educators more broadly.
4. Hold an information session with the Probation Regions who employ the PQiP students on the programme currently and share our findings. There can often be competing priorities between the university and the employer, resulting in duplication of supervision and support systems. These two different and opposing supervision and support systems may be creating uncertainty, frustration and pressure on students, resulting in poor wellbeing. By informing the employer of the findings of this project, it is hoped that a system can be created whereby both the university staff and employers collaborate and provide one clear system for students to benefit from. Only by sharing knowledge can this be achieved.
5. The report generated from the research will be transformed into an article which can be shared with all academics, allowing practice to be tailored more broader than LJMU. Potential journals which may be interested in this research include: Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, The Journal of Continuing Higher Education and Journal of Vocational Education and Training.

Having student interns be a part of the research team was an extremely enjoyable experience, with the intern bringing a fresh perspective on the research and inputting really valuable suggestions. The student intern was extremely hard working and put their full effort into the research project, with a clear desire being shown for wanting the project to succeed. The research would not have been possible without the student intern, and it is hoped that we as a research team have expressed our deepest gratitude to them and that they are aware of how vital their role has been. We will consider the student intern in future research projects.

Impact and Transferability

The impact of the research is already being felt as personal tutors on the PQiP programme who have had access to preliminary findings have benefitted immensely from the conversations surrounding the findings and felt comforted to know that they were not the only people who held certain opinions. Personal tutors have greatly appreciated hearing some feedback from students and have begun to implement this in their practice to allow for a better experience for future students.

The research team, including the student intern, presented preliminary findings from the online questionnaire as part of a presentation at the Students at the Heart Conference. Staff from a range of programmes and schools attended this presentation and asked questions regarding the research, including whether this was a research project which could be replicated in other disciplines. This highlights how there is an interest within LJMU to develop the personal tutoring framework and shows how the project had impact by inspiring other staff to consider the findings and consider replicating this within their own programmes.

The outcomes/outputs are not only focused on the PQiP programme, but they are also applicable to all non-standard degree programmes which may encounter the same issues and challenges as personal tutors and students on the PQiP programme do. Additionally, the report will have a set of broad recommendations on how standard programmes can adopt their practice to incorporate the findings of the project. It is envisioned that the report and project itself will be of use to all programmes within LJMU, with the report being made available to all personal tutors at LJMU and hopefully other higher education institutions.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

Undertaking this project has contributed significantly to the research team’s understanding of developing Education for Wellbeing, with the importance of this task becoming even more evident as the research progressed. Education for Wellbeing focuses on how the learning environment can support students’ wellbeing and success and also how their resilience and academic self-esteem can be promoted and developed. This project has enabled the research team to learn that the learning environment can have a huge influence on a student and can result in feelings of confusion or uncertainty which may lead to the student feeling more pressure and anxiety. This is especially prominent in non-standard degree programmes where the university may have competing priorities to the employer. As the PQiP programme is delivered online, there is an extra element to this learning environment as it needs to be understood how you can accommodate students in a virtual way and provide support solely through virtual means. This project has enabled the research team to begin to explore how this can best be done by utilising the role of the personal tutor. Questions posed focused on students’ wellbeing, success and academic self-esteem and it is therefore believed by the research team that the focus on Education for Wellbeing has been achieved.

For others undertaking work in this area, the research team would advise ensuring the main voice of the research is students. It is vital to understand the student experience from the students themselves as they are the only ones who can provide the reality of situations and explain how it feels. They will be the only ones able to comment on their own wellbeing and although assumptions can be made regarding success or resilience, it is best to hear this directly from the students to ensure any changes to practice will benefit them.

The student intern also learnt a lot during this process and described themselves feeling as though their academic self-esteem had been increased by the gaining of new skills and seeing how their work had resulted in a report. The feeling of success will only continue for the student intern as we hope for the report to be published eventually and to contribute to LJMU policy.

Next steps and future developments

1. The report and findings will be presented to relevant bodies at LJMU who are helping to revise the personal tutor policy framework.
2. The report will be shared with staff on the PQiP programme to allow them to tailor their practice around the views of students.
3. The report will be shared with staff on other non-standard degree programmes to allow them to understand how their students may be experiencing personal tutoring. There is the opportunity for this research to be replicated in other programmes to allow programmes to understand how their own students feel, allowing them to tailor their practice to this.
4. The report and findings are to be shared with the wider university and potentially beyond, to educate personal tutors about what is considered to work and what is considered to not.
5. The research team also plan to disseminate the research to the Probation Regions who employ the PQiP students to educate them about the feelings of students and to hopefully devise a plan for collaborative working in providing support to students.

The research team believe this project could be developed to include students from different non-standard programmes to create a large-scale research study which could address personal tutoring more broadly, with a range of perspectives being gathered. It is not the intention of the research team to conduct this study, but it is believed that this would be really useful.

The report will hopefully be published in the format of a journal article at a later date with journals such as: Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, The Journal of Continuing Higher Education and Journal of Vocational Education and Training being considered as the potential home for this article.

Project Leaders

Dr Elizabeth Malone and Dr Peter Wood, School of Education

Project Team

Md Meraz Ahmed, Aaliyah Owen-McVey, Jamie Berry, Sophie Bresnahan

Summary

This project aimed to illuminate what students in the School of Education found difficult in their HE studies and how they overcame their challenges. By sharing and providing real-life examples, in the form of a small book (The Book of Hope), in terms of the challenges faced and the strategies to overcome these, it is hoped that this resource will equip our students with words of encouragement for ‘when the going gets tough’. In this way, instead of simply telling students to ‘be more resilient’ or encouraging them to ‘just keep going’ the book can shed light, illuminate and share real-life, tangible examples of acts of grit, determination and resilience. The main aim of the project was to investigate what School of Education students report as challenging and to illuminate how they overcame these difficulties, and was guided by the following research questions:

1. What types of experiences do students report as being challenging?
2. What strategies do students report using to overcome/help with these challenges?
3. Are there any collective recommendations we can make for curriculum creators in light of these findings?

Students at the Heart Conference 2024

Project Methodology

An online survey that prioritised qualitative forms of data was utilised in the project. The survey focussed on a range of questions where students were asked things such as: Tell me about a time during your studies that you found challenging; Why was it challenging? ; How did you overcome your challenges? ; If you could do anything differently in that situation what would it be? ; If you had a friend in the same situation what would you advise them to do? The interns were central to all aspects of the methodological approach in terms of writing and building the survey, designing and distributing posters/flyers to advertise the survey, planning and executing a social media campaign to advertise the project more widely; and gathering and analysing the relevant data.

Project Outcomes

The survey revealed a range of challenges currently face by School of Education students that were categorised into five themes: academic, personal, social, financial, and technical. A range of strategies were also identified as being helpful in combatting these challenges with personal responses of resilience, grit and determination seen as particularly useful. The main outcome and product of the project was ‘The School of Education: Little Book of Hope’, that captured the challenges faced and strategies to overcome them, according to current students. These have been distributed around the School of Education, will be given to new students in induction, and have been shared with the senior management team within the school so that they can consider the students’ voice and how this might play into the curriculum choices curriculum leaders make. The student interns, as a consequence of the project, developed a range of skills in keeping with their tasks in response to the methodological approaches outlined above.

Impact and Transferability

There was immediate impact in terms of the student interns articulating how useful and, indeed, cathartic the project was for them and, anecdotally, interns reported that their peers who had completed the survey felt similarly. The ‘Little Book of Hope’ has recently been produced so the immediate impact won’t be felt until students receive this in the 2024-2025 academic year. It is expected that the book will become a useful resource for all our students as a quick hand guide with words of advice and encouragement should things become difficult for them. The project concept was presented at the 2024 SATH conference, where the books were distributed to attendees, and here several members of staff from different schools and faculties declared an interest in doing their own Little Book. Since the conference, the book has been passed on to Student Success Teams, across faculties, as well as to various LJMU libraries.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

The Book of Hope is an intra-university support scheme that captured and shared difficulties and issues that students experienced and strategies to overcome them. Presently, working with a colleague at MMU, we are currently in the development of a project that will focus on inter-university, linear, peer support, where students within the same year of study on similar courses, at different universities, will support each other as part of a ‘pen pal’ scheme, based on concepts and methodological approaches gained from the ‘School of Education: Little Book of Hope’ project.

Next steps and future developments

We are now in phase 2 of the project which will examine how participating in the process of reflection has affected the students who opted in. This interview-based phase of the project will also focus on student teachers, and the extent to which the values, traits and characteristics they identified as important as higher education students are as important when teaching young children. On the back of the survey and interview phases, members of the project team aim to write research papers to disseminate the findings, in a range of early childhood, primary education and higher education-based journals.

Project Leader

Sarah Yearsley, School of Education

Project Team

Faye Christiansen, Al Jones, Abha Tully and Anaia Leigh Burke

Summary

Wellbeing in higher education is an increasingly significant focus, with institutions recognising the impact that student health and happiness has on academic success, retention rates, and overall satisfaction (Ferguson, 2017). Higher education is a period of transition, often marked by heightened stress, academic pressure, and the challenges of adapting to new social environments. Therefore, promoting wellbeing is fundamental, not only for supporting students’ academic achievements but also for promoting their long-term personal and professional development (Cage et al., 2021).

In response to the growing recognition of the importance of student wellbeing, many higher education institutions have implemented a variety of strategies to support their students. These strategies often take a holistic approach, addressing multiple dimensions of wellbeing, including mental, physical, emotional, and social health (Scherer and Leshner, 2021). Although LJMU offers numerous opportunities for students to seek support, often students are unaware that these services exist or how they can be utilised. For universities to fully support student wellbeing they must use a holistic approach that recognises the complex needs of the student population (Cage et al., 2021). The aim of this project was to discover how asset-based awareness strategies could be used to develop student support. Asset-based awareness is an approach that utilises the strengths and resources that exist within a community or individual and allows individuals and wider communities to identify and share their strengths (Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2017).

The principal investigator had used a personal support diagram, with the 2023/2024 L4 cohort within the EECS programmes. These personal support diagrams were designed to allow incoming students to explore their existing support system and those offered by the university. Based on ‘friends and family diagrams’ as utilised in the ABA Feed Study with first time parents (Clarke et al., 2023). Through the process of completing the diagram students were encouraged to understand networks of support in differing areas, such as friends, family, individual, tutors, wider health services etc. Additionally, it allowed the personal tutors and programme leaders to identify students who may have a lack of support allowing them to signpost to wider university support.

This project has evaluated the use of the personal support diagram and how this might be developed within the subject area, school, and wider university. Furthermore, the project has used the evaluation data to refine the diagrams and create additional resources to support the effective utilisation of these for students and staff.

Project Methodology

The evaluation of the personal support diagram resource was conducted through the use of survey’s and focus groups, with both students and staff members. The student interns were involved in all aspects of the project, as detailed below.

The student interns were given a clear set of tasks by the Project Leader, all of which were completed, to:

• design a survey for all students on the L4 EECS programmes, to understand students’ perspectives on the completion of the personal support diagrams, how they have used the diagram, and the support interactions with the staff members in their subject area, such as programme leaders and personal tutors
• design questions for focus groups with both students and staff members regarding the personal support diagrams
• lead peer focus groups and then assist with data analysis
• compile a literature review on the use of asset-based awareness approaches and supporting students whilst at university. For this the interns were split into two pairs with each focusing on one area of literature review
• undertake research on the services offered within the university that applied to holistic student support
• develop a range of resources for staff and students to support knowledge and understanding of support services within the university

Project Outcomes

The outcomes of the project were:

An evaluation of the use of the ‘Personal Support Diagram’: this discovered that the students had found the diagrams useful for knowing the support available to them but due to a lack of follow up throughout the academic year they had not understood how creating them benefitted the personal tutors.

“The personal support diagram outlined all areas of support available to me. This enabled me to feel comfortable and confident if I ever had an issue.”
“Helped me to become more aware of different resources available to me to help with my academic year.”
“It was a good idea on the surface but should be brought up more if you want us to use it.”
“I used it when I was stressed to look at who I could go to for help or support”

When discussing with both students and staff it was clear that the majority could see the point of the support diagram but were unsure how it fit into the wider curriculum this need for additional support led to the creation of the online Canvas module to support the students access to resources and aid the personal tutors.

The creation of a Canvas site for developing an asset-based awareness community: The students working on the project created a module within Canvas called ‘Student Personal Support’. They researched and created content for this module which includes a page called ‘Personal Support Diagram’ which is the location for students to store and maintain their diagrams in the module and also access information on support services available. Within the Canvas module there are numerous pages that support differing aspects of student experience and complement wellbeing these were created by the student interns and detailed below. Students carried out a peer review of each of the pages they created and reviewed and amended the pages in line with feedback received:

• The ‘Life in Liverpool’ page which details information on how to budget, travel costs, money and accommodation advice and more helpful hints for life here at LJMU.
• The ‘Social clubs and activities’ page, detailing all the societies the university offers with links to the relevant webpages at JMSU.
• ‘Health and Wellbeing’ page to support students with healthy lifestyle choices and further relevant health information such as where to find a doctor.
• An ‘Academic Development’ page to provide information and advice to further student’s writing, communications and assignment development.
• ‘Personal Tutoring’ where students can easily access their personal tutor’s information and access the newly developed virtual personal tutor.

Creation of student quizzes to allow academic staff to monitor the engagement and wellbeing of the students at key points during the academic year: The student interns created 6 quizzes to be delivered across the academic year to students as a wellbeing check in to provide advice and information for both students and staff. These quizzes are set for times within the academic year that are often stress inducing for students (Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2017). These quizzes will inform personal tutors of any issues students may be having across the year and support then in retaining students and offering the right advice, signposting and bespoke support on matters ranging from cost of living, accommodation, family and friends and course related matters.

The development of a virtual personal tutor: Within the evaluation data and literature review it was found that students still struggled with a sense of shame when asking for support (Lui et al., 2019). Sometimes it was felt that students could be judged for needing additional support, as if they were somehow not suited to university study (Kim et al., 2022). Additionally, students often needed support when personal tutors or module leaders were not available, leading to further anxiety while they waited for a response. Therefore, the PI has begun the development of a virtual personal tutor, that uses existing university polices to signpost or answer questions.

Impact and Transferability

A number of the outputs of the project have already been deployed to good effect, within the subject area:

• Conversations/interviews between academic staff members and the interns were described by staff members as incredibly informative and staff were grateful that knowledge and experience was shared in such a way.
• The Canvas site is in the process of being finalised and will be distributed for the next academic year with the L4 cohort.
• The personal support diagram information will be given out to all Level 4 EECS students during induction week.
• Presentations on the use of the personal support diagrams have taken place with key members of the subject area and roll out with all the team is planned before the start of the academic year.

Additionally, it is hoped that the personal support diagrams and/or Canvas site may be utilised by other subject areas within the university. The PI is prepared to disseminate the findings with the wider university, through collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Academy and Student Advice and Wellbeing services.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

The project raised awareness and contributed towards increased knowledge and understanding of the subject team about the importance of supporting students with transition into university and beyond. It has opened further discussion about the personal tutor role within the subject area and how we can best support the growing needs of students. The Canvas site is being finalised and has had a positive response from those in the programme team who have pastoral roles, it is believed it will be particularly useful for students and staff when seeking student support.

It is felt by the project team that with greater support within the team and the use of the outputs, such as wellbeing quizzes, we will be greater equipped to effectively support students’ needs. This may potentially increase our retention rates and also support the progression and completion targets within the school and institution. The project also had a positive impact on the interns themselves, feeling more confident to articulate their needs and feeling proud of the outputs of the project that will ultimately benefit cohorts of students to come.

Student intern testimony: In terms of personal impact, I have developed further understanding of Education for Wellbeing and how this links to retention. This is a new area to me, and it is important for me to have awareness of it as a PGDE student as it has helped to highlight how issues, if caught early can make a real difference. I feel I have been able to offer a positive contribution to the project and would ideally like to continue to work on similar projects as I think with more research into ways of supporting students and more awareness, this is a great opportunity for LJMU and universities. The project has also been a great opportunity for me to continue and advance my digital skills through creating the module. It was also interesting having the opportunity to research journals and to pick out key information and details to support Sarah. In terms of lessons learned, I think timing with these sorts of projects is key as it is very difficult to get students to engage once holidays are underway. I think this is likely to have affected the results of the initial survey too which is a shame as a lot of students completed their diagrams but did not give their feedback.

Next steps and future developments

The project outcomes will be rolled out to the incoming L4 EECS 2024/25 cohort and further evaluation will take place.

The wider team will be developing the virtual personal tutor and applying for funding to develop and evaluate this project.

The PI, Sarah Yearsley, has successfully submitted an abstract for a book chapter that discusses the project as a case study.

The project lead hopes to present the findings at the 2025 Students at the Heart conference and additional Higher Education events.

References

Cage, E., Jones, E., Ryan, G., Hughes, G. and Spanner, L. (2021). Student mental health and transitions into, through and out of university: student and staff perspectives. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(8), pp.1076-1089.

Clarke, J., Dombrowski, S.U., Gkini, E., Hoddinott, P., Ingram, J., MacArthur, C., Moss, N., Ocansey, L., Roberts, T., Thomson, G. and Sanders, J. (2023). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Assets-based feeding help Before and After birth (ABA-feed) for improving breastfeeding initiation and continuation: protocol for a multicentre randomized controlled trial (Version 3.0). BMJ open, 13(11), p.e075460.

Ferguson, D. (2017). The rise in student mental health problems – ‘I thought my tutor would say: deal with it’.

Kim, H., Rackoff, G.N., Fitzsimmons-Craft, E.E., Shin, K.E., Zainal, N.H., Schwob, J.T., Eisenberg, D., Wilfley, D.E., Taylor, C.B. and Newman, M.G. (2022). College mental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from a nationwide survey. Cognitive therapy and research, 46(1), pp.1-10.

Leshner, A. I., and Scherer, L. A. (2021). Mental Health, Substance Use and Wellbeing in Higher Education. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.

Liu, X., Ping, S., & Gao, W. (2019). Changes in Undergraduate Students' Psychological Well-Being as They Experience University Life. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(16), 2864. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16162864

Papadatou-Pastou, M., Goozee, R., Payne, E., Barrable, A. and Tzotzoli, P. (2017). A review of web-based support systems for students in higher education. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 11, pp.1-20.

Project Leader

Michelle Chatterley, School of Psychology

Project Team

Jody Squirrell and Ella Fitzsimmons

Summary

To identify the perceptions of wellbeing and wellbeing provision for trainee psychological wellbeing practitioners (tPWP) across their training year, in order to provide insight towards the development of a taught wellbeing programme.

Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWP’s) are trained over a twelve-month period, involving a joint approach between a Higher Education Institution and Talking Therapies Service. Training involves the teaching of evidence-based low-intensity psychological treatments, informed by cognitive-behavioural principles (BPS, 2019). Following a detailed set protocol, PWP’s deliver low intensity high volume interventions to patients experiencing mild to moderate common mental health problems including anxiety disorders and depression (Health Education England, 2022). For many, completing a professional programme of study comes with competing demands of both clinical and academic targets, for trainee PWP’s (tPWP) there is also the added weight of failing the course, ultimately leading to loss of employment.

When considering the tPWP student population specifically, whilst the evidence base is limited, it does suggest that both clinical and academic targets as well as the high stakes nature of the training act as a significant source of stress for students (Owen et al., 2021). Recent research also indicates that tPWP’s are reporting above average levels of stress and below average levels of resilience (Owen et al, 2022).

There is a growing interest in higher education advocating teaching student’s not only academic skills but also wellbeing skills (Gan et al, 2022), with research also indicating the effectiveness of embedding wellbeing initiatives within higher education settings (Young et al, 2020). Thus, the purpose of this small project was to gain an insight into the wellbeing of Liverpool John Moore’s University tPWPs and their perceptions of wellbeing support during their studies. The focus was to gather trainees’ views of stressors in relation to their academic studies and consider what impact this may have upon wellbeing and resilience. The project aimed to gain an understanding of the skills students felt they already possessed, in relation to managing their own wellbeing, and where they felt they could benefit from further support. It was hoped the data gathered from the project would help to inform the development of a wellbeing programme that could be delivered to this student cohort and potentially students more broadly. The intended intervention would also work to address any concerns identified by this student cohort.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024

Project Methodology

Student interns were involved at all points of this project from the preparation of the ethics application, the interview schedule, and in the writing of this report. Interns also engaged with training during this project to boost skills in literature searching, thematic analysis and using End Note. Student interns conducted a scoping literature review prior to the initial focus groups to gain a wider understanding of the context of the project and the motivations for increased wellbeing support for trainee psychological wellbeing practitioners.

The project collected its qualitative data through focus groups via Microsoft teams and in person. The student interns shared the responsibility of conducting focus groups, leading the group with a standardised interview schedule which the student interns developed together. Due to the lower participation levels than expected, the focus groups sometimes resulted in interviews. Focus groups and interviews were completed with a more senior member of staff to provide support for student interns. This allowed the student interns to develop interview skills and adapt communication skills to keep to the interview schedule. Following the interviews/focus groups student interns then transcribed. Following transcription student interns then began to look over the transcripts in the hope of analysing some of the initial data. Unfortunately, due to low participation, we recognised that the data we had would not produce enough in-depth analysis that the objective warranted or support in making wider conclusions. Data also contained one repeat participant who had majority negative conceptions of wellbeing provision across the course, which made for more drastic variations in themes than predicted. Despite this we did gain an understanding of initial thoughts from some of the students around wellbeing. It was mostly a mixed response, with both negative and positive sentiments recorded and some small suggestions on how the university could improve tPWP’s wellbeing. Additionally our NVivo qualitative analysis, completed by Jody, helped begin to categorise themes, some of which began to emerge from codes such as wellbeing, service, challenges, course mates, stress and resilience.

After the data collection student interns presented their initial findings and experience at the LJMU Students at the Heart conference. This supported the student interns in expanding their skills in writing a presentation as well as developing their presentation skills.

Project Outcomes

1. The first proposed outcome was to gain increased levels of understanding regarding tPWP’s perceptions of wellbeing. Owen et al., (2020) provided the first piece of published research taking in to account the perceptions of perceived stress for the tPWP population. The use of open ended questions to explore tPWP perceptions of perceived stress was identified as being much needed and as such formed part of the immediate and short-term outcomes of this project. Given student participation was low, we are acutely aware that we require more data to achieve a reliable and valid outcome. To address this, we have continued with data collection, which we will discuss later within this report.
2. The project aimed to build a greater understanding of how specific positive coping strategies and support helped students deal with the challenges associated with clinical and academic learning. Similar to the outcome above, further data collection is needed to gain a greater level of insight and understanding here.
3. A longer-term outcome would be to utilise the data collected in order to develop a wellbeing programme to imbed within the PWP training programme. The development of the programme would be predominantly lead by the views of students and reflect a shared vision of both staff and students. This is an outcome that will involve continued data collection over a significantly longer period of time.
4. In regard to outcomes for student interns, across this project student interns have developed a number of transferrable skills in relation to attending training, conducting research, writing reports and presenting findings to the wider University via the Students at the Heart conference. Having student interns involved in this project was invaluable as they had their own insight into wellbeing and resilience as LJMU students themselves. Being from different programmes of study also brought additional insights in to challenges of academic and clinical targets for students. Student interns shared that they felt they were able to relate to the participants while retaining professionalism and the role of a researcher. Student interns felt that skills needed to conduct focus groups were evolved, such as an empathetic yet impartial outlook and the ability to communicate successfully with a range of people from differing backgrounds. The ability to work well in a team, listen to colleagues and collaborate meaningfully was consolidated within the research group.

Student interns shared that their ability to prompt throughout focus groups in order to allow space to follow the interview schedule was a skill they had developed, to best produce a qualitative collection that will allow for easier coding and interpretation of the data.

Impact and Transferability

Impact

Whilst we recognise this project is in its infancy, we feel it has already had an impact for tPWP’s. We noticed from the feedback that students were not always aware of student support services, this has been addressed by liaising with student support who will now be providing an induction for all future tPWP cohorts going forward, commencing with the October 2024 group. This will provide an overview of student support services, how to access these and advice around self-care.

Participants also highlighted a lack of support for mature students, this has begun to be addressed by arranging a presentation for future cohorts around Academic support. Drop in’s have also been organised for this student group and we recognise that this is something we will need to explore further.

Another valuable point of feedback from the focus groups, was that trainees sometimes felt stretched too thinly and struggled to juggle the responsibilities of academic work alongside clinical targets. The emotional aspect of a tPWP role was also explored, and participants felt that mental health professionals, especially trainees, could use more time to destress and talk about the personal impact upon those in caring roles.

The trainees felt variation in their course, from allocated tutors to the specification of their course (e.g. apprenticeship vs undergraduate), they identified this as a stressor due to feeling a competitive nature in the PWP sphere, perhaps due to difficult entry onto course and limited job pool in current climate.

Transferability

More broadly, mental health problems are prevalent among students in higher education (Barnett, et al, 2022). Student wellbeing is foundational to academic success (Scherer and Leshner, 2021) and performance (IPPR, 2017), with those experiencing difficulties with their mental health being more likely to underachieve (Universities UK, 2020). Student mental health problems continue to rise internationally (Ferguson, 2017), with a growing body of research identifying that a major concern of the higher education student population, is them suffering from physiological and psychological health problems (Wunsch et al, 2021). With this in mind, this project could also be beneficial to the wider student population, something we will discuss in more detail later within this report.

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

There have been many lessons learned from undertaking this project.

Firstly, we recognised that gaining an understanding of tPWP’s and the wider student population was unachievable for the time scale of this project. This led us to revise our original plan of focussing on tPWP’s, undergraduate Psychology students and Mental Health Nurse students, to focus on tPWP’s solely. We recognised that there are differences in the challenges faced for each of these cohort groups and felt focussing on tPWP’s alone for the scale of this project would be most beneficial.

Our first obstacle was the low participant participation. Despite offering multiple focus groups only three participants volunteered to take part. We have reflected on this and considered the way in which we recruit participants going forward.

We have seen opposing views about perceptions of wellbeing whilst students are engaging with PWP training. We recognise the need to understand this further by continuing our research in this area. This reinforces the importance of participation in order to produce rich and meaningful results.

Despite the low level of participation, the project has been invaluable in gathering initial perspectives of wellbeing and wellbeing support during the PWP training year and has already led to changes being implemented (as discussed above).

Next steps and future developments

The project team believe there is great potential for the project outcomes to be further developed.

Firstly, we recognise that we need to gather more data from tPWP students as well as the wider student population. This would help to gain a better insight into students’ thoughts on wellbeing and resilience in higher education settings. Via additional funding from the School of Psychology we have already begun to action this. A further ethics application was made and we have begun to broaden the project out to a larger group of LJMU students, to include Health Psychology MSc students and Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology students, as well as approaching tPWP’s again.

We have reflected on the way in which potential participants are recruited for this project. From this we took the decision to offer an incentive to engage (£10 Amazon Voucher), we offered individual interviews opposed to focus groups and we also assured the tPWP’s that the lead researcher would not have access to transcripts until they were anonymised, giving further anonymity to the students from being identified by the lead researcher. This approach did yield more positive results with a greater interest from tPWP’s specifically. Data collection is ongoing.

The current project team are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this project and hope to continue to collect more rich and meaningful data in order to work towards the longer term outcomes of this project.

Project Leader

Dr Peter Blundell, School of Psychology

Project Team

Deborah Evans, Freya Wood

Dr Kathleen Vandenberge, School of Psychology

Summary

This project aimed to develop a community of practice for trainee person-centred counsellors and psychotherapists who were undertaking an MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice. It was an evolution of a previous group held a few years ago. This project focused on a monthly virtual group meeting that was hosted by three student interns. This project aimed to help students develop their critical thinking skills, explore and understand person-centred theory and practice at a deeper level and contribute to a broader sense of community across year groups. We have been granted funding to continue the group for another year and build on what has been achieved by the previous two groups. Two conference presentations (Blundell & Hall, 2024a; Wood, Evans, Hall & Blundell, 2024), a research paper (Blundell & Hall, 2024b) and a YouTube video (Hall & Blundell, 2024c) have documented facilitators’ experiences of setting up the group. Feedback from student attendees has been very positive and students have requested the group continues for future year groups.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024 Presentation

Project Methodology

The project was student led which meant that interns were responsible for the organisation of the project with support from the project lead. Interns planned each session: including the consideration of resources, accessibility for students, communication to group members etc. Their student status provided valuable input into the appropriateness of resources to share and discussion points, so that the group focused on students’ needs. Interns were also responsible for the group facilitation (after a period of observation and support from project lead): opening and starting the session, facilitating group discussion, managing technical support (MS Teams), communicating with students during the session.

Project Outcomes

The project contributed to the following outcomes:

• It helped build students’ awareness by exposing them to experiences and knowledge outside their own year group, including understanding the different placements and work opportunities that exist.
• It helped build their confidence in critically evaluating the person-centred and experiential philosophies that inform counselling and psychotherapy practice.
• It improved their debating skills – specifically debating person-centred/experiential counselling and psychotherapy theory as it applies to a variety of phenomena.
• They developed their critical thinking thinks by critically interrogating literature (and other resources) and evaluating their influence to inform practice.
• They built connections, networks and shared experiences with other students across the different year groups.

The project has the following outputs:

Conference Presentation - Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024a). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students. BACP Research Conference, Birmingham, Oral presentation. 2024

Journal Article - Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024b). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research.

YouTube Video - Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024c). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students.

Conference Presentation - Wood, F., Evans, D., Hall, M., & Blundell, P. (2024). Session 62: Person-centred communities of practice: challenging hegemonic notions of education and learning. Student Experience Proceedings.

Impact and Transferability

The outputs listed earlier explore experiences of the facilitators of these communities and could be of use to staff or students who are thinking of setting up similar communities. These outputs give honest accounts of facilitation and the benefits and challenges of setting up these types of communities. Interns presented at the LJMU Students At The Heart Conference which is available to staff and students to look at, whereas the research article could be accessed more widely (including the publicly available YouTube video).

Developing approaches to Education for Wellbeing

This project has highlighted the benefits of learning spaces for students outside of the usual lectures and classrooms. There were issues around boundaries and dual roles that needed to be addressed. We suggest when setting up these types of groups that these issues are explored thoroughly before and during the setting up of the group. We had an issue with continuing the project when funding runs out, which can make the community feel like it is stopping and starting. Ideally, funding would be better over three or four years so that a community can be established and embedded as a regular space for students.

Next steps and future developments

The community will continue into a third year after funding was granted from the School of Psychology. We have spoken at local (LJMU) conferences, and national (BACP) conference, as well as given open access to our journal article and YouTube presentation. We hope to complete another research project this year but with attendees from the group rather than facilitators.

References

Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024a). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students. BACP Research Conference, Birmingham, Oral presentation. 2024

Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024b). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research. 

Blundell, P., & Hall, M. (2024c). It's like Jenga: A collaborative autoethnography study into facilitators' experiences of a person‐centred community of practice, focused on critical thinking skills for counselling and psychotherapy students. YouTube video

Wood, F., Evans, D., Hall, M., & Blundell, P. (2024). Session 62: Person-centred communities of practice: challenging hegemonic notions of education and learning. Student Experience Proceedings.

Project Leader

Steve Wakeman, Criminology, School of Justice Studies, APSS

Project Team

Mel Hughes, Lucia Di Michele, Alana Williams, Bridget Johnston, Harry Oliver

Dr Janet Jamieson, Dr Giles Barrett, Dr Erin Power, Anne Hayes, Criminology, School of Justice Studies

Summary

This project was intended to assess the ways in which students on criminology degrees at LJMU come to identify as a ‘criminology student’, and what factors facilitate/inhibit feelings of belonging and ‘community’ in our cohorts. As a successful and thriving subject area, LJMU sees a lot of students on criminology degree programmes, both single and joint honours, with good indications that this number will grow. Across the suite of programmes, annual intake is 300+ students. Regrettably, with such large numbers retention and progression become problematic, and the criminology teaching team are often presented with significant numbers of students with complex backgrounds and educational needs. The starting premise of this research is that feelings of belonging and community identity are a good place to start working through some of these issues, with obvious benefits to both staff and students.

Towards the above ends then, a small staff-student partnership team set out to undertake a mixed methods investigation of ‘cohort identity’ among current LJMU criminology students. Our rationale was that students are ideally placed to conduct this work, as well as lead on its future development. Results from a survey and a set of focus groups showed a significant level of disconnection between students (28% of those surveyed said there were zero people on their course they’d consider a ‘close friend’, another 32% said there was only one person in this category), this was despite significant efforts being directed towards student experience events over the course of the academic year.

Findings such as the above have underpinned the criminology team revamping our student experience offer. In this respect this project has ‘real world’ impact in that we’re realigning activities such as student social events with other events on the calendar (NSS drives and induction, for example) with a view to better fostering an environment where students can interact more away from classrooms and lecture theatres. It is also hoped that the project will form the basis of more research in this area in the coming years.

Students at the Heart Conference 2024