Ester Ehiyazaryan

Students managing their learning: an investigation into perspectives and patterns of behaviour of students using the Education Guidance service

(seminar notes)

Introduction

This research is informed by the learner autonomy CETL. As such it draws on the literature and principles of autonomous learning, and looks for evidence of how students have engaged in autonomous behaviour, as well as what were the institutional or personal constraints within this process.

The research is equally interested in the forms of support which students use in exercising autonomy. The research is also collaborative with the Education guidance service at SHU and alongside the principles of learner autonomy it is equally grounded in and draws on the theory and practice of education guidance. The primary purpose of guidance is to promote and enhance autonomy. It is there as a form of dialogue for learners to engage in as part of their learning. Also guidance acts as a support mechanism separate from the formal curriculum guided structures within the university. By looking into students’ use of guidance the research focuses on the support systems which are informal and less visible to the rest of the HE establishment. It aims to highlight these informal support systems as playing an active part in learners initiating discussion about their learning, generating questions about their learning and in this way exercising autonomous behaviour.

Research literature

  • McNair

McNair – McNair’s work challenges the compulsion to pathologise learners who do not immediately display autonomous behaviour:

‘Guidance is not about telling people what to do: rather it is a process of finding and interpreting evidence, self-exploration, planning and review. Above all it is a process of helping individuals to learn to be autonomous, to take control of their own decisions and to make decisions wisely… This is a very different notion from the common perception of it as a kind of welfare service, picking up the pieces when students or systems fail.’

This view of the nature and purpose of Guidance also shapes the way we view students who use the service – the sample of students interviewed for this study consists of students who have used education guidance. Rather than taking the view of pathologising these learners, we consider them as those who have exercised autonomy – who have asked questions about their learning, and have taken action in addressing the issues they have.

  • Fazey

Fazey and Fazey characterise the autonomous learner as:

'Autonomous people are intrinsically-motivated, perceive themselves to be in control of their decision-making, take responsibility for the outcomes of their actions and have confidence in themselves. Many authors link these characteristics to the sense of self which enables autonomous people to act within a personal belief system, providing them with the framework for their decision-making and personal planning.'

These are the behaviours which we were looking for in learners, how and to what extent they have exercised these, what institutional constraints they have met up against as well as whether education guidance has played a role in supporting these behaviours.

Methodology

The interview questions were selected to represent areas in which students were likely to engage in reflection during their learning journey.

Transition

Within research literature the exploration and debate around transition issues is often focused on the first year experience. Our research shows evidence that a lot of the reflection associated with transition issues happens in 2nd and 3d year. The experience and practice of education guidance, as well as the participants in this research provide evidence that in their 2nd and 3d year students start to actively generate questions about their learning. The quality of this reflection is higher and this type of reflection is informed by experiences in 1st year, it is often retrospective which is why I have called it informed reflection, because it draws on a broader experiential base.

Student 1

The student has come to the realisation that she needs to take control over organising her learning herself. This is something which she had not realised until the second year. It is also an issue which guidance has played a role in drawing to the learner’s attention. This is the kind of insight which guidance can help learners with.

Student 2

The student realises she can be active in initiating and negotiating her access to tutors and relationship to tutors. Once again this reflection was initiated in second year.

The role of guidance: These two examples illustrate the kind of reflective thinking which education guidance plays an active role in promoting, generating; in other words the purpose of guidance is very often to guide students in exploring their role as learners. They need to realise they have an active role to play in self regulating, negotiating and taking control.

Engagement

Engagement is central to the student experience. And this is what students have said regarding engagement.

join in the discussion’ (student 1).Would not approach the tutor.There is a need expressed by the learner for an opportunity to speak, for students to ‘join in the discussion’. Yet students are not empowered to have a say in this situation.

In the comment of student 3, who had a positive experience with lectures, in his own words: 'The lecturer made it'.So while some lecture are experienced positively, are they necessarily interactive?

As student 4 expresses, ‘you can ask at certain points’. Whether the lecture or seminar is going to be interactive seems to be very much the tutor’s call and the tutor’s decision. It appears that it is the tutor who orchestrates the experience and students are still very much the receivers not the creators of the experience.

There is a sense emerging of the student experiencing limited control over this process. There is also a barrier in the communications between tutors and learners emerges here and which impacts on learner engagement. This is evident in the way students feel inhibited in asking questions (student 4), the way they avoid challenging the tutor (student 1).

The issue of engagement is a matter of affording students the experience of control. Such experiences would be: being able to ask questions, being able to join in, to express an opinion, to be treated as adults.

The argument which this research posits is that in the process of trying to make sense of their experiences, particularly where there have been limits in what they were able to express and communicate, students make use of education guidance for support and advice.

Experiencing control

The issue of control is important to autonomy because according to Fazey, quoted in the beginning ‘autonomous students perceive themselves to be in control over their decision making.’

The question is:While staff are committed to encouraging the development of autonomous learners, to what extent do students actually feel in control of their learning and what are the factors which matter?

Student 1

In this example the student felt a certain module was not relevant to the course. She uses the word 'hierarchy' in describing that as students they did not feel they could say anything about this issue. This makes it evident that this student perceives control over choosing the programme of study to be entirely in the hands of the tutor.

Student 2

In this case the issue was with a number of lectures being cancelled. While the student should be able to voice her opinions on this matter, it is not her perception that they have a right to do that: 'I would prefer not to complain. It is natural that we cannot complain about the tutor.'Which is an admission of powerlessness in the student-tutor relationship.

Student 3, Student 4

What all of these comments have in common is a certain fear expressed, of having to address a figure of authority and a fear that anything which could come across as a complaint ‘can affect our grades’.

Amidst the feelings of reluctance to speak out, fear in approaching the tutor, the perception of hierarchy in the student-tutor relationship, there is a gap in communication, where students are unable to express everything which concerns them in their learning.

Student 5

In the example of Student 5 the evidence is strongest in showing a learner who is in control when approaching her tutor and initiating discussion, which while problematic, the learner feels comfortable about speaking to the tutor. A sense of self esteem is evident in this learner and knowledge of how to approach such issues. These can be identified as essential skills in managing learning, from which the learner has benefited as they have brought positive change to the situation.

In this example it also becomes evident that education guidance/student services are part of the process of the learner negotiating control, addressing issues about her learning.

Student 6

Very often the issue of regaining control over their learning is the reason why students approach guidance. As in the example of student 6. The student feels she is hitting a wall, and that the discussion with the tutor even though it was helpful up to a certain point was not any more the solution to her issues. This student sought education guidance in addition to the formal support she receives from the tutor, and as a way of ‘getting back on track’ or – regaining control over the learning process.

However, as research data indicates, few of the students have this level of confidence in approaching issues about their learning. Fazey’s ideas about the conditions which support learner control elucidates the possible causes of such low confidence:

‘Learners will only be prepared to take control of their own learning when they feel confident to do so. They will only participate freely in learning activities when they are not threatened by failure and the risk of appearing incompetent in front of others. If the aim is to encourage students to think for themselves, explore the subject, become involved in debate about contentious issues, be divergent in their thinking, writing and project work then we must give them the confidence – the perception of personal competence – that will encourage them to do this.’

(Fazey, 1996)

As Fazey identifies, in order for students to experience control, they need to feel they are part of an environment free of the threat of failure. We are not talking about failure as in low grades, but rather as the knowledge that they can contest issues, argue and speak out where necessary - in this respect students should not feel they can fail. Considering the concerns which students expressed with being penalised for speaking out or contesting issues, as well as their perception of a hierarchical relationship, it is evident why these learners were inhibited in exercising control over the processes shaping their learning.

In the examples of student 5 and student 6 we saw students exercising control, and it was apparent that education guidance was part of making this possible. The idea of guidance is to act as a mechanism enabling students to experience control. The question is : what is the role of the faculties in supporting students in exercising control?

Control over assessment and feedback

The issue of control also emerges in the discussion on feedback and assessment.

The student has been denied control over his learning through the implementation of what is primarily a summative system of assessment.

The student’s feeling is that his work has not been appreciated. The student’s perception is that he has worked hard and done a lot of work, put a lot of time in, yet achieved a low grade. It is as if the bulk of the work he has done has remained invisible to the tutor. A compulsion is seen on the side of the learner to see the effort and time he has put in the work valued, yet he realises the system does not work this way.

What is evident from this example is a summative system of assessment which assesses the final product but not the process of learning. Yet research literature on assessment which promotes learner autonomy clearly places process as much more important to learning than the outcome or product of learning.

In this example we are faced with the reality of assessment where the process of learning has not been taken into consideration. The result is a learner who is unhappy with his mark but even more crucially – is demotivated to learn any further.

Heron identifies the answer to this in making explicit the need to make self assessment part of the assessment practices:

‘If the student is seen as a self-determining person, and thereby significantly self-assessing, then assessment will include the process of learning as well as work done on the content of learning…We are therefore immediately presented with the importance of process assessment, as well as content assessment. Assessing how I learn and how I provide evidence of what I have learned is really more fundamental than assessing what I have learned. The shift to self-direction and self-assessment starts to make process more important than content. Procedural competence is more basic than product competence, since the former is a precondition of providing many good products, while the latter is one off – each good product is strictly a witness only to itself.’

(Heron in Boud, 1998: 86)

Could the issue here be therefore, that since the learner in this case was not afforded opportunities for self assessment, that he is essentially not seen as a self-determining person? And is not seen as autonomous? The way the system of assessment worked in this student's case implies that the student are not seen as autonomous, or capable of self assessment.

In this case the student sought support from student guidance in providing formative feedback on drafts of his assignment, such as he could not get from his tutor. The role of guidance in this respect was to once again provide the missing link – to provide guidance on the learner’s ongoing work and in this way bridge the gap in this lack of formative informal feedback.

Ideally this should not be the role of guidance. Providing formative feedback to students needs to be done either through peer feedback or formative tutor feedback. It is when these mechanisms are not in place that students seek support from guidance.

The role of peers in developing a sense of self

As was said earlier, this research places an emphasis on the informal, less visible forms of support which students draw on in their learning journey, alongside guidance, another form of support was this coming from other learners.

This research provides evidence that peers play a pivotal role in supporting the development of a sense of self.

So how does peer support allow the learner to act within a personal belief system – this is what research has explored.

1)Other students provide an uncritical environment where the learner can test out autonomous behaviour and ultimately take control – ‘learners will only be prepared to take control if they are not threatened by failure and the risk of appearing incompetent in front of others.‘

Once again there is a gap in the communication between tutors and learners. This does not necessarily mean that tutor-learner communication is flawed, but that it has its limitations and informal support mechanisms, such as guidance or peer support are necessary to fill this gap.

2)Secondly peers play a role in the learning journey, which is characteristic of students’ transition over the years and of students' personal development planning. The learner describes that in the process of communicating with each other students build up an idea of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and identify skills, potential career paths, they build up an idea of who they are as individuals, they build up their personal belief system.

3)Another example which points out how students’ knowledge of each other contributes to their learning.It becomes evident that it is this knowledge of each other which makes it possible for students to give each other directed advice. Such personal and in-depth knowledge is something which neither tutors nor the Careers advice service, could have for every student. While these sources of support can provide directed guidance, the kind of support which other students provide is unique, in being more personally engaged with the student's individual aspirations and abilities.

Summary

The research has made various implications and has posed specific questions: some of these questions concern the field of educational research; some concern the practice of education guidance; and some concern the role of the faculties in responding to the student experience.

Transition

Students use education guidance not only in first but in 2nd and 3d year. This makes implications for shifting the discussion on transition issues and for recognising that transition happens in 2nd and 3 d year as well, that in fact this is the time when students start to actively and autonomously generate questions about their learning.

  • Do we place enough emphasis on the kind of reflection and transition which happens in 2nd and 3d year? Is the role of guidance recognised as supporting students in actively generating questions on their learning?

Engagement and control