SRC Interviews Initial Analysis

Nicola Whitton, October 2011

1.Introduction

This document provides a concise overview of the results and analysis of a series of interviews undertaken with final year students in the springof 2011 as part of the Supporting Responsive Curriculum project at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Twenty-two students took part in in-depth interviews exploring their experiences and perceptions of university and the results, along with the initial analysis, is presented here. These interviews make up the first phase of a two phase study, which will compare the perceptions and attitudes of final year students with first year students.

2.Aims of the research

This series of interviews aimed to gain insights into:

  • Learners’ perceptions of ‘responsiveness’ in terms of curriculum and course design;
  • Learners’ views on employability and what the university offers;
  • Learners’ expectations from university and the degree to which these are met;
  • Learners’ experiences of an attitudes towards technology;
  • Learners’ attitudes towards fun and games in a Higher Education context.

3. Research methods

This research used an exploratory qualitative approach in order to investigate the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of the learners in the study. The objective of the research is to better understand the views of students, and gain insights into areas in which changes could be made. As a result, the emphasis is on thematic interpretation of the data, highlighting areas of commonality and idea generation.

3. Data collection

Twenty-two interviews took place with final year students (in one case a returning postgraduate) over a two-week period in February/March 2011. All students were interviewed by the same interviewer and length varied between 45 minutes and 90 minutes. Students were recruited through the university’s jobs4students service and paid for their participation, as this was considered to be the only way in which the researcher could guarantee active participation.

The interviews were based around a set of open-ended core questions, which explored the themes set out in the study aims, but there was much opportunity for the discussion to move in a variety of ways depending on the directions the conversations took. Each interview was voice recorded and fully transcribed for analysis.

3.2Data analysis

Each interview transcript was coded into themes, by the same researcher who had undertaken the interviews, using the nVivo qualitative data analysis software. Two levels of themes emerged: first, themes that related directly to the project aims, which were in a sense answers to the research questions (described in section 4); and second, three overarching themes that applied across the data (described in section 5).

3.3Limitations of the research

This study is a small-scale qualitative study, and it cannot be assumed that the findings are generalisable to the wider student population. The method of recruitment – through the jobs4students service – will produce a biased sample, specifically targeting students who may be more proactive in terms of engagement and employability. However, the method can provide in-depth insights into the potential range of student opinion, and highlight issues.

4.Results

This section provides an overview of the data gathered from the interviews and the initial analysis undertaken. Evidence from the interview transcripts is also provided where it serves to exemplify a point being made.

4.1Background data

Sex: The sample consisted of 10 males and 12 females.

Age:Ages ranged from 20 to 37, with a median age of 22.

Subject discipline:

  • Arts/Humanities – 14
  • Science/technical – 3
  • Business – 3
  • Health – 1
  • Law – 1

Jobs:

  • 17 of 22 have a job outside of the university.
  • The amount of time worked varies between one hour per week and twenty.

4.2Responsiveness

In general, the students interviewed had been able to little input at high level design, but lots they had been able to input in lots of ways at operational levels. The overall experience was very mixed and largely dependent on the course and discipline studied.

Programme design:

  • In most cases learners had very little opportunity to input into course or curriculum design, with some exceptions.

“... they did a project at the beginning of the year ... and we found it not useful for us. It hindered our work, because we’d come back from the summer. We’d been working on other projects ourselves and then they give us this project immediately. And they just eradicated it for us and put it in the later half of the year for the year that was coming up behind us.” (Participant A)

“in the first year you just get given a set course, six units, you have to do them all but then in the second and third year you get given options so obviously you get to pick and design your course a little bit based on your options and obviously a lot more in the third year where you pick everything. You can design your own essays which is good.” (Participant E)

Assessment

  • Limited examples of student input into assessment design.

“it wasn’t our cohort who instigated the change, but on one of the modules last term there was an assessment that was a presentation. It was a sort of 15 minute presentation that you had to do as a group, and that assessment got changed for this year because certain people weren’t confident … they were losing marks because of presentation skills. I think the module organiser sort of realised that it wasn’t necessarily about the presentation, it was more about the understanding of the work, so I know that got changed from last year” (Participant S).

“when it comes to writing an essay you’ll get given a set list of questions but then if there’s a question that you have of your own that you would like to answer in an essay then you can propose it to the lecturer and they’ll give it the okay, you can write your own essay.” (Participant E).

  • Student input into assessment schedules is more common.

“right at the beginning he said we’ll discuss deadlines to set when they will be. So yeah, we did have input, so we chose the dates where we’d set the assignments in” (Participant B).

“oral presentations were supposed to be the last week of this term. And for me, I’m doing three languages, so that would have been three oral presentations. Like lots of people do joint honours with French, Spanish, German. And yeah, again the student ambassador has written a request to change that, and now that’s been moved to the end of the exam period, and … yeah it’s just a lot less pressure on us … and yeah, they’ve listened, I’d say they’ve listened.” (Participant T).

“there was just one time when we wanted to, um, put off our exam by like two weeks and we asked our tutor and he sorted it out for us” (Participant I).

Curriculum design

  • Few examples of designed input into what is studied.

“basically what we do is we come up with our own projects, because it’s an art course so we decide what we’re interested in, working on themes.” (Participant A).

  • Flexibility on what is study is typically based around deciding whether or not to attend lectures.

“All the materials gets put up on WebCT after a lecture or whenever that week’s finished, so if you don’t attend something you can always catch up on it, um, by reading up on it. But it’s not really advisable, because the lecturers always go and explain things a little more in-depth during a lecture.” (Participant O).

“you always get told this, you know, attendance is compulsory, but it’s not … it’s not widely enforced to be honest ... so on a module you can … you’re not meant to, but you can sort of pick and choose which book and which area of that particular module you’re going to focus on. So there’s that, even though you’re not meant to do it really, you’re meant to be a good student and get a full rounded knowledge of your subject.” (Participant S).

“I would say attending lectures is optional, but you kind of do need to go … yeah you could do it from home, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” (Participant T).

  • Most students had the choice of optional units in their programmes, but little flexibility of what to study within options.

“we get to pick what modules we do, but the areas that these modules are based in is very much firmly based in the research interests of the professors and doctors who run the course” (Participant S).

  • Reasons for selecting particular options include: relevance for intended career; fit with timetable; type of assessment; perceived ease of curriculum; lecturer teaching the unit; interest in the subject.

Timetabling

  • This was another area in which changes had been made.

“they’ve changed like the actual times of lectures to fit round people when they can’t get there” (Participant B)

“they’ve made so many changes to the timetable now it’s so much better, so I think they listened to us over the past two years” (Participant F).

“The rotas for we do lab practicals, I think sometimes that they clash so those have been altered I think in the past to try and fit in better with our lecture timetable.” (Participant H).

Teaching

  • Students had some input into how lectures were conducted.

“it was more about lectures, like the atmosphere in lectures. Because I remember we had problems with noisy students. So representatives, they went to speak to lecturers, and then lecturers were more like telling students to be quiet, and they were more active in that” (Participant J).

  • Cancellations of lectures was also an issue that had been dealt with.

“there’s been less cancellations, because in my first year a lot of our lecturers used to cancel a lot, so I think a lot of the students sort of made a bit of a complaint about it because we pay a lot of money and we don’t want to, er, we don’t want, we actually want to turn up to the lectures so there’s been like rarely any cancellations in the third year” (Participant K).

Issues with specific staff members.

“I started a petition with all the students’ comments saying how, um, incompetent this teacher was and how we had no confidence in him. But, er, we got that filled in by the students and then we passed it onto the degree scheme staff who then, one of them leaked it to the head of department and then once he saw that he removed this particular member of staff” (Participant O).

A range of alternative ways of providing feedback and dealing were suggested:

  • (anonymous) online forum;
  • regular meetings with staff and students (not just course reps);
  • questionnaires earlier in the term so changes can impact on the current cohort;
  • publishing feedback from previous cohorts and showing changes;
  • more direct contact with the head of department;
  • (anonymous) suggestion/comment box;
  • focus groups with independent mediators.

All participants felt that course representatives were a good idea, but their levels of perceived effectiveness differed in practice.

“I think [course reps] are a very very good idea, because ... the teachers make it well known to all the students that this is the one person, go and speak to them, and that’s a direct link from them … like the students, what the students are thinking, to the teachers, and … yeah I think it’s a cracking idea” (Participant T).

“we have a spokesperson for each language department and the one from my department, she was very good. She addressed issues and they had a meeting. I don’t know how often because I wasn’t involved in that but she did bring issues to the attention of lecturers.” (Participant C)

“sometimes I felt like what we were putting across as reps was falling on deaf ears. I felt like a lot of the decisions had already been made and we were just there to tick boxes.” (Participant A).

“there is a course representative in my class, but I don’t see much she’s done” (Participant N).

4.3Employability

  • The majority of students felt that the university careers service was doing a good job, but there was a perception that it isn’t always well-publicised.

“I think university does a lot already. Because if I think about it, all these job fairs and also prospectuses. I think they inform quite a lot about what you can do. It’s just … I think it’s then up to individuals how much he is willing to take from that.” (Participant J).

“I think that’s like a good way of supporting like students, um, and they do like, I know they do, I’ve never been to one myself, but I know they do workshops on like employability and all things like that sort of helping you. So it’s just not just like the careers guidance. It’s the sort of support behind that as well.” (Participant K).

“You can’t force it on people, but if they make the effort, if a student makes the effort to go and find out after, about careers after you know, um, after they finish university, um, I think it should be there. And it is there really.” (Participant M).

“I’ve seen the careers’ service, but that’s me going to them, not them attracting me to go there.” (Participant R).

“workshops maybe … which they do, but they aren’t advertised very well ... like your teachers won’t tell you about it” (Participant T).

  • There is also some evidence of effective employability support embedded in courses.

“For me the first day that we arrived here they’ve been very focussed on well you need to get a portfolio together. You need to think about what your CV is going to be like. You need to think about targeting where you want to work.” (Participant A).

“when we did placement they listed all of our placements and they essentially said you know here are jobs, pick one, which was good.” (Participant Q).

A variety of reasons were put forward for undertaking a university course:

  • Personal enrichment (e.g. confidence, meeting people);
  • Transferrable skills development (e.g. time management, independent learning) ;
  • Subject-specific skills and knowledge;
  • Work experience;
  • To get a job or higher salary;
  • To increase opportunities.

4.4Expectations

Teaching

  • Students generally expected lectures and seminars, but the amount of contact time was often a surprise.

“it was a little shock to the system to come in and realise that you know you were only going to be in for a few hours a week and you know the amount of reading that you were going to do.” (Participant S).

“how little contact time there was was a bit of a surprise, not necessarily negatively, I just thought it might be a bit more like college where we’d do sort of four hours a week per subject. I thought maybe it’d be more, probably about double what I do, but then there’s a lot of reading you’ve got to do on your own and that’s where the time fills out.” (Participant E).

“the biggest shock like I said was the fact that I had so little classes at the beginning. Well, I mean to this day really. It’s like twelve or fourteen hours at the very most.” (Participant I).

  • The difficulty of study often does not match expectations, but not always in the same way.

“I found university very, very well I wouldn’t say very, very easy, but I found it well to be, in all honesty the first year was very easy as far as I am concerned. Year two was okay. It was a tiny bit more hard, but year three it’s definitely hardest out of them all.” (Participant I).

“Harder than I thought, yeah. With second year … because they expect … like they expected in second year for us to know as much as we do in final year, and um … with languages it’s not like that, it’s a long process.” (Participant T).

“some of the courses I expected it to be, um, more sort of, um, more in-depth and more, um, as in for some of the courses we wouldn’t get feedback or, um, we wouldn’t get any sort of examples. The tutors would read off slides and that was a bit annoying. I didn’t feel like it was at university level. It seemed like at school level.” (Participant N).

Assessment

  • Stricter than expected.

“They tell you to do this essay and I’d done essays at college, but I didn’t know what they were expecting and everything was stricter, tighter deadlines, tighter guidelines, so it was different.” (Participant A).

“I think the one thing that I’ve really had trouble with was the hand in times. You know like in high school or college you just hand it in to the person, whereas here it’s receipt and it’s like to the time to the date kind of thing and if you don’t then you capped. I think I never I didn’t expect that.” (Participant M).

  • More assessment than expected.

“It’s a lot more coursework than I envisioned. It’s less exams, which I’m happy about, but, um, it’s just a lot of all the deadlines being altogether and it’s just it’s a lot of hard work which I should’ve expected.” (Participant K).

“I don’t think I was expecting to have so many essays.” (Participant P).

“Exams were a lot longer than I expected.” (Participant Q).

“I didn’t expect as much assignments and you know essays of three thousand, two thousand words.” (Participant F).