Phase 3: Assessing.
This phase revolved around the question of examples of good practice and the impact of embedding a widening participation strategy. However, at the time of the project several key changes occurred in both national and university reporting and policy
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requirements. The data collection for this project commenced in November 2006 and extended over two years (to December 2008). Over such a timeframe external changes impacted and evidently affected the students and staff. In my mind whilst this was important the key central question concerns perceptions and response to WP. The key sub questions which were addressed in this phase were:
• What is meant by embedded and how is this manifest in policy and practice across the institution?
• What are the shared understandings, if any, of Widening Participation across the institution?
• Are there promoters or barriers to actively embedding and sustaining Widening Participation?
There were also other compounding changes such as campus changes and rationalisation of the number of schools within the university and fundamental curriculum changes. These changes included: a new learning framework, year-long modules, pre- university bridging materials, closer monitoring of the first year experience (week 6 and 10 reviews) and an amended and renamed Enhancing Teaching, Learning and Assessment (ETLA) strategy which urged all staff to embrace diversity and inclusive practices explicitly identified in one of the three aims of the strategy. These were developed to address issues of student retention and progression through the stages of their programmes, not specifically WP, using ‘diversity’ as the term to embrace disability, ethnicity and gender issues.
Furthermore, there were new positions among support staff to monitor and manage students with difficulties and help students to navigate any support needs they may have (School Academic Achievement Advisors or SAAs). At this point with so much change and that HECFE no longer required universities to have a WP strategy in place and hence a school WP strategy, my research question had to be amended. However, the question of how embedded WP was within the university and the schools remained.
Prior to this the University WP policy and strategic plan meant that aspects of WP were delegated to a number of areas for monitoring and evaluation. As part of the University WP steering group it was evident that the overall co-ordination and overview of WP was diffuse and aspects delegated to specific teams i.e. outreach, teaching and
learning or student support. Each school was to develop their own strategy in response to the university strategy to try and coalesce or operationalise this larger strategy. Thus the objective I had identified, as a key author of the HSSc strategy, was to
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monitor and evaluate embedding of the strategy. I had developed this strategy to reflect the university and also the student life cycle and the various areas of work within the school (HSSc). This became obsolete with the demise for the need of a university and hence school strategy. The issues were unchanged and ‘incorporated’ into other university policies and practices. As a consequence accountability for WP as a specific entity was no longer a requirement. The mixed methods approach included multiple methods and as such was flexible enough to respond to the changing environment, structures and processes (including curriculum). Its pathway did change somewhat as outlined in the changes to the WP strategy and demands of external stakeholders, such as HEFCE regarding information about the institutional actions towards WP. This worked to my advantage in giving me a different but related route by which to explore the wider institution view of WP and the issue of ‘embedding’ of this.
The issue of WP remained on the horizon and, fortunately, this could be further explored though a national project overseen by Action on Access (AoA) for HEFCE. This was then a key vehicle for me to explore WP in the institution more widely than the embedding of the strategy within the school. Politically this arose from a number of documents and funding issues associated with student retention, WP audits and the review of WP research as identified in chapter 2. The purpose of the AoA project was for institutions to reflect on what WP meant for them and in what ways it was
mainstreamed and embedded within practices and processes. I encouraged a team of colleagues from across the university to explore this within Middlesex as outlined in chapter 3.
Up to this point the external reference points for the progression of this project were the support and critical advice from my Programme advisor and Subject advisor. The project was focussed on practice level but the changes identified meant a reframing of the project. The advantage of the emergence of the national AoA project to the third phase of this project was an opportunity to address the wider institution position and overt commitment to WP. It afforded the authority to ask the challenging questions of WP and complement the project elements and AoA was a recognised authority to act as an external reference point or ‘critical friend’ to processes and practices. This element of criticality was important to provide objectivity and stimulus to explore deeper into the organisation and the evidence for the conclusions and actions suggested.
Thus whilst the research question remained the same, the objectives had to be modified to address the revised approach. In this instance the term ‘strategy’ was removed as this was now obsolete. An overview of WP and the process of
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mainstreaming or embeddedness was explored with identification of good practice which could be disseminated, and areas which could be strengthened. The focus was also not now solely on lecturers but on all university services and as such was a much larger investigation than originally intended at the commencement of this DProf project.
Phase 3: Planning.
The AoA project referred to in chapter 1 and above aimed to explore the extent of mainstreaming and embeddedness of WP in institutions was critical to my exploration of the lecturers’ understanding of WP and its impact on their practice. I integrated this project to run alongside my research to provide a further richer dimension. The working team I convened ensured a participative approach complementing the research
process.
This project was funded by HEFCE (Action on Access, 2008) in terms of AoA advice, guidance and support. The aim of the project was to provide a focused programme of events and support to stimulate institutional internal reflection and dialogue aimed at developing, integrating (mainstreaming) and sustaining WP. In addition to this, AoA also provided external information, guidance and a critical reference point with its expanse of research and expertise. The project was aimed at senior staff, WP leads or influence and other staff, the main aim being to achieve a commitment from
institutional staff at all levels. This project was intended to last for 11 months involving approximately 18 other institutions across the country. The key objectives for
institutions were identified by Action on Access (2008) were to:
• Review their institutional approach to mainstreaming and sustaining WP. • Identify the strengths and limitations of the approach.
• Develop, implement and evaluate institutional policies and practice to overcome gaps in their current strategic approach to WP.
• Draft plans for the future to further integrate and sustain WP.
• Produce a policy discussion paper reflecting on the future of widening participation within the institution.
The AoA objectives did link quite closely with my own and provided the opportunity to answer my sub questions: strategy embedding, shared understanding and barriers or promoters to embedding and sustaining WP. The project working team comprised five members of the university. However, initially I was aware that to ensure a wide range of participation and effective organisational support and change required a larger working
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team within the university of colleagues from a wide range of services and
departments. The larger project working team devised a strategy to operationalise the AoA objectives. This was undertaken in several stages as outlined in chapter 3. The key output for public scrutiny was a policy discussion paper.
Phase 3: Implementation.
The project working team were not exclusively academic staff and represented the following departments : English Language Learning and Support (ELLs), disability services, teaching fellows, outreach services, equality and diversity (human resources), AimHigher, student support (SAAs), student union representative and summer school projects. The range of people reflected the services delivered in the university and was open to anyone who wished to join through open invitation. The working group was not exclusive and aimed to be inclusive to incorporate a wide range of experiences and opinions. The implementation was undertaken through a series of working party meetings in the university, support and guidance workshops from Action on Access and a staff development event. Each working party meeting resulted in a series of actions the results of which were collated and fed back to the group.
Phase 3: Analysis.
The central focus for this part (phase 3) was not on teaching and lecturing staff specifically but on the wider services of the university which impact upon the student experience. In specific, the question: ‘Is there a difference [in WP] between or within schools in the University?’ is addressed by this phase and the objective: ‘To identify the effects of embedding a Widening Participation strategy upon lecturers’
understanding and teaching approaches’. ‘Are there promoters or barriers to actively implementing the [school] Widening Participation strategies?’. The term ‘school’ and ‘strategy’ had to be omitted but the process of embedding WP practices remained. Whilst this particular project was not designed to fulfil many of my research questions, participating in this project answered elements of my question by exploring the bigger institution picture specifically: What is meant by embedded and how is this manifest in policy and practice across the institution? What are the shared understandings, if any, of Widening Participation across the institution? Are there promoters or barriers to actively embedding and sustaining Widening Participation? It also, more importantly, was an opportunity to actively use participative approaches complementing the epistemological underpinning of my research approach. This phase enabled me to
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work closely with a wider team across the university and have a more profound influence on WP discourse and practices associated with it.
There were challenges for and to the working party in relation to meetings, task allocation, analysis etc. Gaining representation from all the service areas was an issue as well as consistency of representation. Some areas were stretched and had varied levels of involvement. This was most notable from Student Union. This group was key and yet did not have the staff or membership to attend which in retrospect is an issue of planning meetings. Contribution at a distance was the compromise. The participation levels did vary from active to passive but attention was always focussed on inclusion. However this may have been hampered to a point but individual perceptions of how and to what level they could be included. Power and position was also a challenge especially as this work and groups was being driven forward by a few individuals some with a lower position in the organisation to more senior colleagues resulting in some tensions and conflicts.
In this phase of my DProf project (and the AoA project) there were five working party meetings over the eleven months. These included discussion on and actions
associated with the key objectives. There were several strengths from this phase this included the identification of key stakeholders which wished to be involved in issues of WP and consequently the working party. In addition a SWOT analyses by the team provided an accumulation of the perceived key issues by the working group following full and frank discussion. This enabled a view of the varying contexts under which teaching and learning are practiced. These were organised under macro-, meso- and micro- level of the institution. The macro level referred to the overall institution in terms of structures and guiding the function of the university (policies etc). The meso-level was taken to represent the focus on the school organisation and structures. The micro- level was taken to represent the individual departments or subject groups and the staff in daily work and the interface with delivery of higher education. The results of these are presented and discussed in chapter 6. A further strength was the opportunity to analyse relevant policy and other documents to ascertain reference to, and embedding of, WP. This enabled colleagues to reflect on the guiding frameworks in a coherent way to see the holes or omissions and how to address this. The documents were selected for relevance to teaching and learning but opens up the necessity to view all policy and strategy documents for ‘joined upness’.
The key points addressed within this phase of the project included consideration of the key opportunities or drivers for change so that the university could consider how these
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might be tackled and what ‘embedded and mainstreamed WP’ looked like in a
changing HE sector. The university needed to demonstrate high level commitment to sustaining WP within the mission, management, culture and practice of the institution. Furthermore, it brought certain issues to the fore:
• Where WP currently fits within the institution and why it remains of strategic importance.
• What the current principle commitments are, asking challenging questions such as what is the institution actually doing and why? For example, how is WP shifting the culture? How is WP embedded across different departments? How does the HEI sit within the local community and how is this shaping its strategic developments? What are the current core activities? How success is
measured?
These questions fitted with my own research questions which were focussed on one particular area: lecturers understanding and pedagogical practices. This then positioned the lecturers within the wider institution and the wider influences which impacted on their perceptions and practice.
Phase 3: Evaluation.
This part was a large project in itself and was completed in less than one year at a rather rapid rate. Only some of the issues and outputs are identified here, the significance of these will be explored further in chapter 6. The main frustrations were the consistency with which the project working team met and were supported by more senior staff. The project itself was finite but the repercussions are longer term. The opportunity to meet with and explore the issues of WP with other colleagues was a valuable experience imbuing a sense of cohesion and desire to improve the student experience. There were not many lecturers who contributed to this phase but the services around the teaching provision and student experiences were equally important and represented. There were several tensions within the working party and many of these could be construed as power issues raising the question of leadership, responsibility and accountability. It was evident that working with such an influential organisation as AoA was generally done by more senior colleagues and whilst the ‘team’ appeared to be working effectively together this was more to do with the industriousness of a few rather than the equitable contribution of all.
This was not an easy project to manage but was an example of how influence and leadership can be projected from many levels within an organisation. There were
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colleagues who were reticent to critically reflect on their own areas and were protective and others who had their own agendas either based around funding issues or other perceived needs. This was an opportunity to engage and make WP part of the cross university Student Experience group and make WP embedded within key working groups. Certainly there were enthusiastic and committed colleagues who believed as passionately about WP as I, however, this was not uniform and tensions in the working group at times resulted in slow progress.
The WP and HE landscape is continually changing and since this AoA project there have been more changes, in that HEFCE are now asking for a Strategic Review report identifying institutions commitment to and success in WP and as such demonstrating this dynamic and fluid environment of WP.
As an outsider in the school management team, and ultimately the university
management teams, I had a limited opportunity to impact in the wider changes within the organisation. I was also aware of the pressures from outside the organisation (HEFCE, unstable financial climate etc) and also within the organisation (academic and geographical changes). As the project developed it emerged that influence has many levels of impact and subtle changes could have more enduring impact. However as an insider, challenging the notions of WP being ‘done’ by ‘someone’ and the insider knowledge of peoples perspectives and practices it was evident that actions were not always what they espoused. This raised questions of beliefs and relationship with others, idealism and questions around the role of HE but also wider issues of truthfulness and authenticity which will be explored in the next chapter.
I attempted to analyse the institution from a macro-political angle during this phase (AoA project). This involved consideration of power, diverse and conflicting goals within the organisation, educational and social positions and diverse personnel and professional interests. This was expansive and revealed the context. Blythman and Orr (2002) suggest analysing organisations to determine where power lies, how it operates and where there is space for action. To do this, reflections from the second part of my study were utilised with reference to the processes (meetings) and data (as presented in chapter 6).
Evaluation of overall project coherence and progression.
The three main phases of the data collection element of this project were conducted over a period of three years. The initial research question was devised in light of my
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position at the time and my various roles and emergent understandings of WP. In planning the project the phases were quite distinct but as the project progressed the phases had to be modified to address the external and internal changes which occurred within the organisation. The phases as outlined above do blend and move from a micro level of practice to the broader organisational commitment and
accompanying policy formulation and supportive infrastructure. The findings revealed a complex tale of how WP is constructed and practiced, if it can be practiced. This is discussed in-depth in chapters 5 and 6. Certainly this challenged my own perception of what WP is. My intention was to investigate and ask questions of WP, challenge belief