Exploring the impact of disruption on university staff resilience using the dynamic interactive model of resilience

The unanticipated changes in Higher Education settings brought about as a result of COVID–19 resulted in a range of personal, pedagogical and organisational challenges. This paper reports on research undertaken within a university in South West England, exploring how the pandemic impacted the working practices of academic and professional staff, the implications of those changes and the factors the respondents interpreted as influencing their resilience. A mixed methods approach was adopted whereby data were gathered from 159 academic and professional staff members using an online survey. Nine respondents were then individually interviewed. The data were analysed using the Dynamic Interactive Model of Resilience (DIMoR) in order to explore protective and risk factors from the various systems surrounding the respondents, alongside their more personal vulnerabilities/invulnerabilities. The results highlight the importance of considering individual and wider contexts when analysing the potential for resilience to emerge in times of disruption. The significance of movement of proximal and distal influences depending on the individual and their context also emerged, offering implications for university leaders to consider in supporting staff within their institutions. The value of the DIMoR is discussed as a lens for analysis to support understanding and future action

Developing Effective Assessment Feedback: Academic buoyancy and the relational dimensions of feedback

This research reports on the second phase of a project exploring the effectiveness of tutor to student assessment feedback. It highlights the dynamic interaction of interpersonal and intrapersonal contexts in effective feedback processes. It proposes a holistic conceptualisation of feedback that considers the academic buoyancy and attributes of the recipient, and the relationships and opportunities for dialogue with the provider and the ramifications for practice. To explore the impact of the implementation of changes to practice suggested from phase one of the research, qualitative data were collected and analysed from student focus groups and individual interviews within a UK undergraduate education course. Links from this phase between feedback processes, affect, tutor input and the ‘Key 5’ indicators of academic buoyancy emerge, revealing the importance of reciprocal relationships and dialogic interactions. This demonstrates the need to acknowledge the individuals involved and the nature of the relationships between them

A Rounder Sense of Purpose

Championing a socially and environmentally sustainable form of development has implications for both what is taught and the way that education is conducted. These two sides of education for sustainable development (ESD) have been described by Vare and Scott (2017) as ESD 1: promoting informed behaviours and ways of thinking and ESD 2: building capacity to think critically about and beyond sustainable development concepts. While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer the educator content and context (ESD 1), they cannot in themselves develop educators who have the competence to facilitate critical ESD and global citizenship (ESD 2). A Rounder Sense of Purpose (RSP) is a three-year, EU-funded project developing an accredited framework of competences. This is being tested through bespoke educator training programmes among approximately 400 pre-service and in-service educators in six European countries. This work draws on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe framework of educator competences for ESD (UNECE 2012), which itself made reference to an earlier system of teacher competences (Sleurs 2008). The UNECE framework remains a largely theoretical tool that has not been implemented in a way that links its 39 competences to assessable learning outcomes. Since early 2016 RSP partners have worked on ‘distilling’ the UNECE competences, i.e. reducing the number, removing repetition and identifying gaps. This was done with reference to other significant work in the field including that of Wiek et al. (2011) which has been adopted by UNESCO (2017). In presenting the RSP competence framework we argue that this represents a pedagogy for transformation. As such it addresses the need for ESD 2, providing a counter-balance to the more familiar ESD 1 approach that would be supported by exploring the content of the SDGs

Developing academic buoyancy and resilience through the assessment feedback process.

Assessment feedback can be an opportunity to develop students' academic buoyancy (Martin & Marsh, 2008) - itself a part of students' academic resilience. Academic buoyancy refers to the ability to manage the everyday setbacks and challenges in education, such as a disappointing grade. This research builds on the findings and proposals for action from the first phase of research into the effect of assessment feedback on the academic buoyancy (ahmed Shafi et al. 2016) of undergraduate students studying BA Education Studies. This identified 5 indicators of academic buoyancy and 3 consequent suggestions for changes in practice for assessment feedback processes within a BA Education Studies course. This follow up research seeks to explore the impact of the changes to practice on the academic buoyancy of students at the end of one academic year. The data collection methodology is comprised of three parts; focus group interviews with students, individual student interviews and an analysis of National Student Survey (NSS) scores for the previous and current academic years. This research situates itself within the action research approach (Elliott 1991) within a desire to improve the democratic and virtuous nature of teaching (Elliott 2015), through critical reflection and the ‘theory-practice conversation’ (McAteer 2013 p.12). Consideration will also be given to a subsequent phase of research, to be undertaken to examine longer-term impact of the approaches examined within this phase. The changes in processes to the assessment feedback provided students with: a revised feedback sheet with an enhanced focus on strengths, reasons for achievement of grade and suggestions to improve the mark; teaching sessions with a focus on the development of academic buoyancy through the 5 indicators; and a tutorial structure where students are tasked with discussing individual self-identified development points derived from the feedback. This research seeks to identify the impact of this scaffolding approach (Bruner 1978) on students’ perceptions of the value of the revised assessment feedback process and how this relates to their academic development, their emotions and their overall satisfaction with the BA Education Studies course as a whole. The project aims to inform the professional learning of teaching staff through identifying the effectiveness of research-informed practice which may then be considered for use within their own courses and institutions

Developing assessment feedback literacy: The role of reciprocal relationships and dialogic interactions

This research is situated within the notion of ‘feedback literacy’ (Carless, 2016) and academic buoyancy (Martin and Marsh, 2009). It examines ways in which students respond to and use feedback in order to ascertain the potential for tutors to maximise its effectiveness. It builds on the first phase of this research which was designed to improve assessment feedback (Ahmed Shafi et al., 2017). Findings demonstrated that, alongside changes in practice derived from the first phase, the dynamic interaction of the social and personal contexts were key factors in feedback processes and academic buoyancy. Phase 1 highlighted the impact feedback has on students’ emotional state and identified five indicators of academic buoyancy (the Big 5). The findings showed that assessment feedback can support the development of these indicators and thus develop academic buoyancy. Based on these findings, changes to practice were implemented. This current paper explores the impact of these changes, which included: focused tutor input on the 5 indicators, revising the assessment feedback format and student devised action points for discussion within personal tutor meetings. To understand the impact of these changes with regards to feedback literacy, qualitative data were collected from 4 focus groups each comprising between 4-6 students and 8 individual student interviews across Levels 4, 5 and 6 of a UK undergraduate BA Education degree course. Findings indicated that changes to practice supported academic buoyancy and that additional input to develop the indicators would be beneficial. Additional emergent themes included the importance of contextualised dialogue (Ajjawi & Boud, 2017) and the significance of relationships with tutors in facilitating a more buoyant response to feedback. The research has led to a proposed model that conceptualises feedback practice and bases it on a revised set of Big 5 indicators of academic buoyancy and embeds it in a course ethos that recognises the importance of relationships between tutors and students and acknowledges the role of dialogue in providing both emotional and academic support. The model takes account of the individual attributes of students stressing the formative, personal and development potential of feedback and with a systems perspective. The relevance of these findings link closely to the idea of ‘value for money’ in Higher Education but importantly to how tutors can support students in their academic journey