Troubling ideas for widening participation: how higher education institutions in England engage with research in their access agreements.

This article explores how higher education institutions in England engage with research in their access agreements. Through an analysis of access agreements from 2014-15 to 2016-17, a picture of how research is understood, undertaken and documented emerges. A lexical analysis of the texts was used to establish the different ways research is being referred to or funded as part of the access agreement process. The analysis shows a productive relationship between national policy and institutional activity. But there appears to be a lack of infrastructure at an institutional and sector level to join up sustained and rigorous research with widening participation activity and policy. This means that, even after ten years of access agreements, widening participation is not fully embedded into the academic practice of higher education. We argue that research undertaken as part of the access agreement process can provide much needed evidence of impact and situate activity within an institution-wide context. However, we also suggest that widening participation research has the potential to offer productive troubling ideas to dominant rhetoric and, in so doing, shape new ways of thinking about, and doing, widening participation within institutions and across the sector

First- and second- generation design and engineering students: Experience, attainment and factors influencing them to attend university.

Challenges for students who are ‘first in family’ to attend university have been discussed within widening participation discourse. However, in the UK, ‘first in family’ or first-generation students have frequently been conflated with those experiencing poverty or from lower socio-economic groups. This research integrated survey data with assessment data from final-year design and engineering students in a UK university to examine students’ attainment, the influences on why students decide to attend university, and students’ experiences during their degree programmes. Analysis of the data showed variations in the reasons for first- and second-generation students wanting to go to university, particularly a significant difference in the influence of parents. First-generation students described significantly less parental influence on the decision to attend university than second- or subsequent-generation students. Smaller differences in students’ experiences and attainment in university were also noted. While first-generation students reported differences in study habits, their attainment was, on average, marginally higher than that of their peers. Building on others’ theoretical work, which suggests the importance of social capital within higher education, this research highlights the difference in social influences both on university application and expectations of university for those with and without a family history of tertiary education. Further research is needed to explore, in larger samples, whether the social influences on an individual’s perception of higher education are in turn shaped by whether or not their parents attended university, and further, what impact this may have, not only on degree outcomes but on the broader benefits typically associated with graduate experience

Report to Foundation Degree Forward on the impact of foundation degrees on students and the workplace

The study (commissioned by Foundation Degree Forward) was undertaken by a team of researchers from the Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information and the Learning and Skills Network. It set out to explore the impact of foundation degrees from students' and employers' perspectives. By design it also aimed to build capacity among (mainly) staff in further education colleges delivering Foundation degree (Fd) 8 programmes through the involvement of Fd practitioners in the study. Many of the Fds in the study were still rather new, and some of the research findings reflect this recency. The study found that students and employers perceive a range of benefits that Fd study brings to individuals and the workplace. Full-time students cited gaining real business/industry experience, gaining broad knowledge of a specific industry, developing relevant knowledge and skills, and making contacts for future jobs as some of the benefits. Those already in employment cited getting back to learning, gaining new subject knowledge and an understanding of theories linked to, and informed by workplace practices, the development of academic skills, and gaining broader perspectives on their current work. Most students considered they had gained confidence through their studies. Employers also noted the gains in broader understandings and improved performance in the workplace. However, the study also found that employer involvement in the design and delivery of Fds was very variable. A few had been actively engaged, and practitioners acknowledged that engaging employers effectively and persuading them to take part in future developments could be a challenge. The report notes that many of the Fds involved in the study had yet to capitalise on the intended levels of integration of academic and work-based learning, and of employer engagement which are seen as some of the distinctive features of Fds

From Aaron to Ivanhoe

A collection of Bulloch County history materials compiled by Charles Bonds, Dorothy Brannen, Maggie Collins, Dan Good, Nkenge Jackson, Evelyn Mabry, Carolyn Postell, Robert M. Seel, and Rita Turner Wall. Included are a brief history of Bulloch County, an article on local 19th century architecture, two accounts on county history by Rita Turner Wall, a short history of Willow Hill School, a report on the research on Willow Hill School, “Extinct Towns in Bulloch County,” “Pretoria Station,” the biographies of Beatrice Riggs and Laura Bell Hendley Martin, three articles from the Bulloch Times on the memories of a Confederate veteran and the 1865 Census of Bulloch County. The index to this collection was compiled by Julius Ariail.https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/bchs-pubs/1014/thumbnail.jp

Asking the right questions: Opportunities and challenges of survey methods in widening participation research

The development of an institution-wide survey at one English university raised questions for the researchers in relation to how to ask students about their background. The survey was to focus future widening participation (WP) practice. A detailed iterative process was undertaken to design the institution-wide survey, which included pilot-testing and qualitative focus groups with students, from which the results of this paper are drawn. We highlight two areas for consideration: the first, consists of issues of survey design and deployment in an education context generally, and the second, of specific issues relating to survey methods in widening participation research and practice. Students willingly participate in a survey when its aims are clear, when it is easy to complete and when it is perceived to be of ultimate benefit to them. Students in this study did not mind responding to questions about their widening participation status but needed the reason for these questions to be overt and the question to be phrased in a manner that is straightforward and easy to understand. A key learning point from developing the survey was that, in our attempts to use what we thought was more positive, politically correct language, we used euphemistic terms which had the unwanted effect of causing confusion amongst the students. We question whether the use of euphemism clouds the potential reality of inequality and that to uncover and act upon this inequality – surely the aim of WP practice – we need to directly ask students about their experience of disadvantage. Our reluctance to ask direct questions was to avoid offending students and based, problematically, on our underlying assumptions about the shame and stigma attached to disadvantage. These unconscious beliefs about shame and stigma need to be brought into conscious awareness and challenged if we are to address inequality in higher education

Core Competencies to Promote Consistency and Standardization of Best Practices for Digital Peer Support: Focus Group Study

Background: As digital peer support is quickly expanding across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, standardization in the training and delivery of digital peer support can advance the professionalism of this field. While telehealth competencies exist for other fields of mental health practice, such as social work, psychiatry, and psychology, limited research has been done to develop and promote digital peer support competencies. Objective: The goal of this study is to introduce the coproduction of core competencies that can guide digital peer support. Methods: Peer support specialists were recruited through an international listserv and participated in a 1-hour virtual focus group. A total of four focus groups were conducted with 59 peer support specialists from 11 US states and three countries. Results: Analysis was conducted using the rigorous and accelerated data reduction (RADaR) technique, and 10 themes were identified: (1) protecting the rights of service users, (2) technical knowledge and skills in the practice of digital peer support, (3) available technologies, (4) equity of access, (5) digital communication skills, (6) performance-based training, (7) self-care, (8) monitoring digital peer support and addressing digital crisis, (9) peer support competencies, and (10) health literacy (emerging). The authors present recommendations based on these themes. Conclusions: The introduction of digital peer support core competencies is an initial first step to promote the standardization of best practices in digital peer support. The established competencies can potentially act as a guide for training and skill development to be integrated into US state peer support specialist competencies and to enhance competencies endorsed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).publishedVersio

Climate warming erodes tropical reef habitat through frequency and intensity of episodic hypoxia

Climate warming threatens marine life by increasing metabolic oxygen demand while decreasing oxygen availability. Tropical species living in warm, low oxygen environments may be most at risk, but their tolerances and exposures to these stressors remain poorly documented. We evaluated habitat restrictions for two brittle star species from Caribbean coral reefs by integrating field observations, laboratory experiments and an ecophysiological model. The absence of one species from the warmest reefs results from vital activity restrictions during episodic low oxygen extremes, even though average conditions are well within physiological tolerance limits. Over the past decade, warmer temperatures have been significantly correlated with a greater frequency and intensity of hypoxic events. Continued warming will progressively exclude hypoxia-tolerant species, even if average oxygen remains constant. A warming-driven increase in frequency or intensity of low oxygen extremes could similarly accelerate habitat loss across other marine ecosystems. -- Keywords : Oxygen ; Aquatic hypoxia ; Hypoxia ; Coral reefs ; Oxygen metabolism ; Ocean temperature ; Echinoderms ; Climate change

Sensory geographies and defamiliarisation: migrant women encounter Brighton Beach

This article’s starting point is a sensory, reflexive walk taken on Brighton seafront and beach, by fourteen migrant women and some of their children. It goes on to open up a wider discussion about the cultural politics and affective resonances, for refugees and migrants, of beaches. By discussing their sensory experiences of the beach, we begin to understand their ‘ostranenie’, or defamiliarisation, of making the familiar strange. We also see how evocative such sense-making can be, as the women compare their past lives to this, perceiving their lifeworld through a filter of migrancy. The article goes onto discuss the broader cultural symbolism of beaches, which are a site of contestation over national values, boundaries, and belonging. As well as discussing sensory methodology in this article, and explaining the locale of Brighton Beach itself, it concludes with some wider thinking of the cultural politics of beach spaces and migrant perceptions