Learning Journeys Research Project

Jonathan Hughes, Kim Slack and Chris Baker

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Warwick, 6-9 September 2006

Introduction

This research shows the value of using a life history approach within the interviews that are an essential part of the research. Although there is not space in this paper to share the series of stories we have collected around turning points in people’s lives, focusing on their interpretation of these events and past experiences. These stories are located within a broader social and policy context. This context is discussed and an example of one story is given to show how it shapes and structures one individual’s experience.

Aims of the research

The research compares the experiences of three providers in the West Midlands thatpromote access to adult further and higher education for disadvantaged groups. The threeproviders are The Open University, StaffordshireUniversity and the West Midlands Regionof the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA).

The Open University research focuses onthe experiences of two groups of students: one group in the Staffordshire area who werestudying Openings courses and a second group in Birmingham taking courses leading toan Early Years Diploma.

This experience is compared with that of StaffordshireUniversity’sPartnership Programme, which involves work with a large consortium of further educationcolleges, and with research work undertaken within the WEA’s extensive links withnetworks of community organisations, trades unions and local authorities.

The research aims to promote better understanding and to encourage solutions thataddress disadvantage, discrimination and stigma with regard to education, qualifications and life chances.

Research Methodology

The research project includes six discrete studies. These six studies were selected so thateach of the three partners would have one work-based and one community-basedexample. The researchers agreed a common methodology that was consistently used forthe six studies. This involved a considered balance of the use of background demographicinformation, questionnaires and interviews.

The questionnaires were used to establish a broad picture of the larger groups involved inthe research as well as providing an opportunity to ask people if they would take part in an interview.. They were also of benefit when establishing ‘themes’ that could be followedup in more detail in the interviews. The interviews aimed to furnish selected and detailednarratives, which would illuminate the learning journeys undertaken by people within thecase studies.The main areas of demographic detail that were considered were those relating to age,gender, disability and ethnicity.

Where sample size made it useful, questionnaires were sent to individuals identified withinthe population of interest. Where used, questionnaires comprised closed (tick box)questions, although sections about student attitudes towards learning and views of theircourse provided respondents with the opportunity to expand on their answers

These were followed up with requests to participate in telephone or face-to-faceinterviews, which were planned to last 30-45 minutes. The interviews were semi-structuredfollowing prompts that focused on the following areas:

  • Educational history
  • Family background
  • Motivation for participating in the course
  • Potential problems on the course
  • The benefits of learning
  • Current situation and future aspirations

Learning journeys and lifelong learning

Learning Journeys captures the essence of students as individuals undertaking activity thatwould mean finishing somewhere significantly different from where they had started. Itis a useful concept informing the research.

‘Learningjourneys’helps to distance us from thinking just about barriers to participation in lifelong learning. It helps us avoid blaming those who either do not participate or who withdraw from theircourse. Instead we focus on what the experience means for those engaged intheir own learning journeys with as fewpre-conceptions as possible.

The ‘real’ stories of student experiences consider why people becomeinvolved and their previous experience of education. The research into learningjourneys provides the basis of a more detailed account of becoming astudent and of the effects and benefits that result.

We make an explicit distinction between ‘learning journey’ and the more familiar concept oflifelong learning. ‘Lifelong learning’increasingly reflects the educational policies of the Labourgovernment elected in 1997. This gives precedence to the national requirements ofeconomic competitiveness by attempting to provide employers with suitably skilledworkers. Hunt (1999) is not untypical in suggesting that government references to lifelong learning can betranslated as ‘worklong learning’ (Hunt, 1999:198). Thus the primary role of education isto serve labour market imperatives and is located within an occupationalframework

Examples include:

  • The 2003 White PaperThe Future of Higher Education (Stationery Office, 2003a) - the main areafor future growth in HE student numbers is to be foundation degrees aimed at increasing employability and addressing skills shortages.
  • 21st Century Skills: Realising Our Potential – Individuals,Employers, Nation (Stationery Office, 2003b). Foreword by the Prime Minister, TonyBlair, sees the skills ‘of our people’ as ‘a vital national asset’ which will ‘helpbusinesses achieve’, ‘help our public services’, ‘help individuals raise their employability’,‘sustain a competitive productive economy’ and lead to ‘a fairer, more inclusive society’ (StationeryOffice, 2003b:7).
  • Learning and Skills: the agenda for change (LSC, 2005). Further Education is located in terms of its utility in skills improvement. Minister of State, Bill Rammell, describes further education as an essential partner indelivering ‘the transformation we need for our economic success and social mobility’ (LSC,2005:i).

If education is an unmitigated ‘good’, then unwilling individuals may, in Bauman’s phrase, be viewed as ‘flawedconsumers’ (Bauman, 1997:14). Such learners are variously seen as:

  • problempeople
  • ‘non-learners’
  • ‘hard-to-reach’.
  • those with poor basic skills,
  • excluded
  • representing risk, (for themselves and tosociety).

Howard (2001: 1) suggests this leads to people being addressed in‘patronising, finger-wagging terms’, which are likely to lead to ‘an increased sense ofinadequacy and low confidence’.

Yet the Learning and Skills Council (LSC, 2005:6) places ‘the learners’ and employers’ experiences atthe heart of assessment of college performance’ and talks of the need to ‘adopt a forensicapproach to the understanding of the needs of the learners and the employer’, highlighting(op.cit, 7) the need to ‘commission further work on measuring quality byilluminating learner experiences, describing the economic impact of colleges and analysingtheir role in developing sustaining and harmonious communities’. They also (op.cit, 19) envisage ‘promoting the views of satisfiedcustomers to tell their own stories and encourage others to take advantage of what isalready on offer’.

We support the need to hear what learners have to say about theirown experiences but do not go along with simply equating learner and employer needs. Learners, in their own right, deserve to be listened to and to affect what educational providers have to offer.

Contexts, cost and benefits of learning journeys

There may be ‘ambivalent, even hostile attitudes of family and friends’ towards being astudent (Brine and Waller, 2004:105). Involvement in education mayprompt ‘self questioning of their own lives and choices and hence threaten relationships’(Brine and Waller, 2004:108).

Baxter and Britton (2001) (in Brine and Waller, 2004:108) highlight howthe concept of friends and family being ‘threatened’ by changing learner and classidentities may also be due to ‘the learner either being seen by others as “superior” or thestudent “herself” feeling superior’.

An individual’s assessment of these risks may be the basis of therational and pragmatic decisions about whether or not to participate in higher education.

Despite over a century of universal state education in the UK, it stillremains the case that class is a strong predictor of academic success. For the minorityof working-class people who go on to higher education, this means education is about risking failure or being ‘found out’. Even narratives of success are linked with escape from working class.

Marks (2000: 306) notes that education ‘comes to be seen as not forworking class children, not something the system is capable of offering them and notsomething they are equipped to deal with’.

Thomas et al. (2004:35) cite Hutchings (2003) who suggests that for manyworking-class people higher education ‘has simply never been on the agenda’. Thomas (undated, p. 12) also findsthat mature students experience discouragement from their immediatefamily and other agencies. Research with non-traditional students suggests that‘social networks and friendship [are] of paramount importance to the decisions madeabout staying or withdrawing from higher education’.

Bamber and Tett (2000 :59) suggest that for non-traditional students their learningjourneys are ‘likely to be characterised by uncertainty and the need to critically examineand change some of the underlying assumptions on which their lives have been built’. Similarly, Brine and Waller (2004:97), find that ‘This transitional phase is not astraightforward one of simply shredding old identities and donning unproblematic newones, but is instead a period of reflexivity and risk, confusion and contradiction’.

However, Schuller concludes that ‘learning plays a vital role inenabling people to carry on their lives in the face of a whole range of competing and oftenstressful demands’ (Schuller et al., 2004:29). Learning helps others to ‘carry onmore or less as before but with renewed commitment and enjoyment’ (Schuller et al.,2004:30). Schuller comments that, ‘Education is not a shield that protects people fromexperience but is a means of managing that experience in some more or less purposivefashion’ (Schuller et al., 2004:30).

A number of authors point outthat education has the power to disrupt as well as to integrate. Hammond(2004:560) comments that‘personal development can lead to conflict and difficulty because it “challenges the statusquo” … thus increased self-understanding, a clearer sense of identity and independentthinking can contribute both positively and negatively to health outcomes’.

This next part of this report focuses on an individual learning journeyas a basis for a subsequent consideration of the implications for practice and policy and exemplify individual learning journey.

Learner’s ‘story’

Jayne is in the second year of a Teaching Assistant Foundation Degree. She is currently working in a secondary school. She is divorced, has 2 adult sons, one at university and one who no longer lives at home. She decided to undertake the Foundation Degree for professional development reasons, but also because of the Workforce Remodelling in schools and she feels that successfully completing her studies will provide her with more job security.

She describes herself as ‘a worrying kind of person’; she feels that she does work well and is valued within the school, but:

‘…. I’m not a very confident person, personally. I’m managing to get reasonably good grades so it all, I hope, will give me a bit more confidence’.

Jayne goes on to talk about her early educational experience, her family’s attitude towards learning and how she views education now. The comments she makes suggest that her working experience has been supportive and within this environment she has begun to participate in learning successfully. This is in contrast to her school experience. This also illustrates how her past experience and own childhood have influenced her work with children now.

Researcher:

Could you describe your experiences of education before starting the course, what’s your educational history?

Jayne:

It was poor. The only qualifications I had when I left school were 6 CSEs. I had no motivation. For family reasons, I had a very difficult childhood, quite a traumatic childhood and education was not a priority. I do remember feeling quite frustrated as a child because I did want to learn. I was an avid reader, I loved books, and I still do. I found that quite difficult to deal with. Also, my family history is why I have no confidence. So I did quite poorly at school and as I say I only came away with 6 CSES which I’ve always been ashamed off. I’ve always carried this guilt and shame around with me. I think again that’s what affects my confidence because I always thought that everyone else is better than me. It wasn’t until I left home and I applied to do an NNEB which I was prompted to do by my boss, I knew I wanted to work with children, I went to work in a day nursery and she advised me to do my NNEB which I passed. Then I worked my way up, eventually into a school. Then I’ve done different courses since then. Recently I’ve had to do my Level 2 Literacy and Numeracy obviously because I’ve got to have that level in Literacy and Numeracy in order to be a HLTA. I did those by using the Learn Direct Programme and I passed those last year. So I do feel sad because I think, I had got the ability, but I hadn’t got the support.

Researcher:

So education wasn’t valued in the past?

Jayne:

By the family, it wasn’t valued at all. I knew deep down I had got some ability because in my schoolwork I got reasonable results. I was in the top of the middle band but because of having no motivation at home. I wasn’t allowed to do homework so it became a downward spiral then, and I didn’t really know where to go. So school work suffered drastically. But I do feel that my background helps me here because I do empathise with children who have problems. I feel that helps me in my work because I know where they’re coming from and I know when they’re sitting there and getting panicky I can put myself in their position completely. So I do feel that’s the only positive thing about my school life that actually helps me in my present job.

Researcher:

From having done the course, how much has your attitude towards learning changed, if at all?

Jayne:

It’s become more positive. Far more positive and I see the doors that it can open. Personally that it can open. In a personal way now it can make me feel more confident and also things that I now enjoy doing because I’ve got the knowledge that I shied away from previously. So that opened those doors. It’s being able to mix as well with other people in a similar circumstance.

Jayne then goes on to talk about how she would have avoided learning in the past because she thought she did not have the ability:

Researcher:

So what sort of things might you have shied away from?

Jayne:

Generally learning. I would have done because I thought I couldn’t do it. Yet I’ve been doing this course and the lowest mark I’ve got is an 11 out of 15, which I think puts me at about a 2:1. I’ve got a couple of 13s/14s – which is a First. It’s made me think that I can do things and more doors are open to me than there were previously.

Although she felt very uncertain of her ability at the start of the course, taking part has made her address some of the areas she was not confident in before, for example in relationto IT. But overall, her confidence in herself has developed. She has been helped through some of these difficulties by the tutors.

Researcher:

In terms of being observed, how was that?

Jayne:

I do worry about things like that because of course you’re on show. I think anyone would worry. I am a worrying sort of person anyway. I do get worked up about that sort of thing but because I knew it was part of the course and it had to be done, I had to bite the bullet and do it. Although I was concerned about it because I have confidence and trust in my Tutors that sort of lessened it really. Lessened the fear because I do find the Tutors very approachable.

Researcher:

How did you feel once the observation was over?

Jayne:

Totally relieved. Then of course, why did I worry? That’s exactly what went through my mind. Why on earth did I worry about that because it was fine?

She goes on to talk about the impact of taking part in the course and demonstrates some of the more hidden, wider benefits of taking part in learning. It is evident from this part of the discussion that the family attitude towards learning she experienced as a child is very different to the one she appears to have fostered within her own children:

Researcher:

What impact has your studying had on the people around you, like your friends and relatives?

Jayne:

I think, increased respect. May be surprise with a few but not many. Certainly not with colleagues because the colleagues here in school, most the colleagues, have been extremely supportive. They’ve kept me going at the low times when I have had crises of confidence and people, colleagues particularly have picked me up “come on you can do this”, they’ve given me confidence and they’ve given me support “yes you can do it” and it’s driven me on really. I do feel that I have gained more respect from people within the job and outside too. I think my sons as well are very pleased that I’m doing it. I’ve had comments like “well we knew you were capable and you could do it”. I feel it’s nice that I can show them because I’ve always had such a low opinion of myself and the boys know that I have. I think it’s pleasing them as well. They’re always very pleased, you know “send us a text when you get your results” and things like that. They are with me on it and I find that’s a huge support.