I’ve attached the presentation slide deck in this blog post as a PDF. I created it on Canva, so the link can be found here.

And the PDF file is here:

This is a reference list of all works referred to and cited through the ARP Unit process:

Allen, A (2022) ‘An Introduction to Constructivism: Its Theoretical Roots and Impact on Contemporary Education’, Journal of Learning Design and Leadership, 1(1). Available at: https://ldljournal.web.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Andrew-Allen-Constructivism_JLDL_Vol1Issue1September2022.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Barbour, R and Kitzinger, R (2011) ‘Do Focus Groups Facilitate Meaningful Participation in Social Research?’, Developing Focus Group Research. London: SAGE Publications. Available at: https://methods-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/book/edvol/developing-focus-group-research/chpt/do-focus-groups-facilitate-meaningful-participation (Accessed 7 January 2026).

BERA (2024) ‘Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition’. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Bufkin, L J and Bryde, S (1996) ‘Implementing a constructivist approach in higher education with early childhood educators’, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 17(2), pp 58–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1090102960170207 (Accessed 12 January 2026).

Carlson, K and Blanchard, D (2024) ‘Restructuring Power Dynamics within a Classroom: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study’, The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning, 3(2). Available at: https://red.mnstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=ijgll (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Chang, H et al (2013) Collaborative Autoethnography. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Collaborative-Autoethnography/Chang-Ngunjiri-Hernandez/p/book/9781598745566 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Conquergood, D (1991). ‘Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics’, Communication Monographs, 58(2), pp 179-194. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759109376222 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Crenshaw, K (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp 1241–99. JSTOR. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039. (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Ellis, C (2004) The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. California: Altamira Press.

— (2007) ‘Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives: Relational Ethics in Research with Intimate Others’, Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1), pp 3-29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800406294947 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Ellis, C and Bochner, A P (2000) ‘Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity’, Handbook of Qualitative Research. Edited by N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln. California: Sage, pp 733-768.

Ellis, C et al (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Erickson, F (2018) ‘A History of Qualitative Inquiry in Social and Educational Research’. SAGE. Available at: https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/127399_book_item_127399.pdf#:~:text=(From%20Latin%2C%20qualitas%20refers%20to%20a%20primary,distinctions%20in%20kind—while%20the%20contrasting%20term%2C%20quantitas%2C (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Freire, P (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc.

Fritzgerald, A (2020) Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning. Wakefield, Massachusetts: CAST, Inc. Available at: https://nelson.northampton.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991001848236907361/44NORTH_INST:44NORTH_INST (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Greenbaum, T L (2011) The Handbook of Focus Group Research. SAGE Publications. Available at: https://methods-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/book/mono/the-handbook-for-focus-group-research/toc (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Hall, F (nd) Positive Evaluation Framework. Available at: https://positiveevaluation.myblog.arts.ac.uk/tool-kits/ (Accessed 18 September 2025).

Hanington, B and Martin, B (2012) Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions. Quarto Publishing Group USA. ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=3399583 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Liamputtong, P (2011) Focus Group Methodology: Principle and Practice. SAGE Publications, ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=689539 (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Murray, A (2019) ‘How to Create a Radar Chart in Excel’, How-To Geek. Available at: https://www.howtogeek.com/402016/how-to-create-a-radar-chart-in-excel/ (Accessed 29 September 2025).

Riedmann (1993) Science That Colonizes: A Critique of Fertility Studies in Africa. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Salmons, J (2023) ‘Collaborative Autoethnography and Duoethnography’, Sage Research Methods Community. Available at: https://researchmethodscommunity.sagepub.com/blog/collaborative-autoethnography (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Saunders, M N K et al (2023) Research Methods for Business Students, ninth edition. United Kingdom: Pearson. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/UAL/detail.action?docID=7219451 (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Smith, L T (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

— (2021) ‘Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production: Webinar 2’, National Centre for Research Methods. [Online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQ09rPQFyA (Accessed 7 January 2026).

The AutoEthnographer (2021) Available at: https://theautoethnographer.com/artistic-autoethnography-artifacts/ (Accessed 7 January 2026).

UAL (nd) ‘What and how we teach’. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/climate-action-plan/what-and-how-we-teach (Accessed 7 January 2026).

University of Buffalo (nd) ‘Constructivism: Creating experiences that facilitate the construction of knowledge’. Available at: https://www.buffalo.edu/catt/teach/develop/theory/constructivism.html#:~:text=Constructivist%20Classroom%20Activities-,What%20is%20constructivism%3F,%2Dexisting%20knowledge%20(schemas) (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Young, M (2008) ‘From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curriculum’, Review of Research in Education, 32(1), pp 1–28. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0091732X07308969?__cf_chl_rt_tk=.YvVcZL3XvY7l7KJ3rwhZ_z8uAflpY0hreDjMawTtnI-1769003976-1.0.1.1-xr_wwXDlENZVqrpERjK.a3C40CLtGWDBrPfyWDWZ6nM (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Challenges

Through the ARP, I faced logistical challenges at work and some personal challenges, both of which were unfortunately out of my control and hindered my progress.

For the former, I faced an issue of low attendance in the Creative Magazine Writing unit that I was basing my ARP in, which was surprising to me as this unit is beloved by the previous cohort and had good attendance last year (the first year of the unit). I anyway had a small class to begin with, as it is an option unit with half of the full class strength (of a cohort that is anyway small) – at just 8. So, while the first survey of the self-assessment project was answered by almost all as I had 7 students present in class the first week, it dwindled to 6 students in class for the mid-point worksheet and then only to 4 for the second survey and ultimately 3 for the focus group for the ARP. I tried my best to keep encouraging the students and was compassionate and sterner as and when required (after students didn’t acknowledge several of my emails). This unit, which is a favourite of mine to teach, became quite disheartening and frustrating at times with only 2–3 students in class. I worried that 3 participants for the focus group may not be enough, but my tutor Carys assured me that for a project of this scale, it should be fine.

As for the latter challenge, I had a bereavement in the family in December 2025 and was unsure if I would be able to submit on time. I am glad that I have been able to pull this together in time for the deadline.

Project Limitations and Areas for Future Research

I always use my project limitations to think of areas where future research can be carried out, and I follow that here too.

As the ultimate aim of this project is to roll out this self-assessment tool as a university-wide practice, the experiment needs to be ratified from further testing. While the project received an overall positive response in my assessment of its efficacy, it was only through 3 participants in the focus group. Though the data generated is sufficient for the scope of the ARP, it must be verified through testing in other units and programmes, with different class sizes and teaching and assessment styles, to ensure that it would be relevant for other classroom types too.

As I have limited design and statistical data knowledge, I would also be interested by my colleagues’ inputs about how the data can be generated visually and through reports for students’ ease of understanding. While my participants enjoyed the radar chart approach, I am curious to find out about other alternatives.

Finally, some research and investment would be required to create an automated tool that can ease the process of analysing student responses and creating the radar charts (or equivalent) and filling in data for a report template that the lecturer can create for their units.

Data Collection and Analysis Process

I conducted qualitative analysis on the focus group I conducted for my project. In the Appendix of this post, I have shared the transcript of the focus group, with the student names anonymised for ethical practice. In the transcription, I used thematic analysis, which involves ‘coding qualitative data to identify themes or patterns for further analysis, related to [the] research question’ (Saunders et al 2023, p 665).

Practically, I did this by audio-recording the in-person focus group conversation on MS Teams (taking my participants’ consent) and listening back to the recording to give finesse to the transcript that Teams created. As the conversation lasted approximately 22 minutes, I did not feel the need to use a coding software like NVivo. I created themes/nodes myself in MS Word and manually organised selected quotes under different themes by creating a key in which different highlight colours signified different themes/nodes. I also put certain quotes in bold that I wanted to focus on in my data analysis. The developed themes were a result of specific questions I had in mind and had planned the focus group around as well as some unexpected themes that arose out of our semi-structured discussion, i.e., the interesting tangents that arose out of the group dynamics/interactions (Liamputtong 2011, p 50). The themes I finally developed were:

1. Students tracking their progress through self-assessment surveys
2. Significance for students to visualise their skills and progress through the radar charts
3. Significance for students to set goals for themselves through self-assessment surveys
4. Significance for students of receiving customised written reports that I created
5. Students understanding Learning Outcomes of a unit through self-assessment surveys
6. Student response to the self-assessment surveys approach vs standard unit evaluations
7. Student response to practicalities of the survey
8. Significance of the midway touchpoint worksheet for the students
9. Students more actively engaging in their learning journeys

I followed Saunders et al’s six phases of thematic analysis: ‘data familiarisation; data coding; initial theme generation; theme development and review; theme refining, defining, and naming; writing up’ (2023, p 665) through the acts of transcription, coding, writing multiple drafts of this blog post and the slides, and rechecking the transcripts and coded data.

Findings

In this blog post, I discuss some findings that I have not discussed in my final slide deck and presentation.

a. Midway touchpoint worksheet

One thing I found surprising is that a worksheet I adapted from a toolkit that my manager Dr Frania Hall has created in her Teaching & Learning project was a favourite among my students in this self-assessment project (see Fig 1). I used the worksheet as a midway touchpoint so that students keep reflecting on their learning journeys and don’t just see the SKM as a box-ticking activity in the first and last classes. While the students were answering the worksheet, I was afraid they might think it too simplistic or ‘childish’. But, in the focus group, the students heartily agreed with each other – leading to an interesting tangent, as discussed in this blog post – that they enjoyed this activity, with quotes such as:

Student 1: I think I quite enjoyed the post-it note one.

Student 3: Oh, that was good!

Student 2: I think doing that like reflection right in the middle was also like a nice reminder of the survey that we did at the beginning as well. Rather than just doing it at the beginning, then doing it right at the end. It was nice to like sort of stop halfway through. Yeah, go like, look back on how you were so far and then you can go and look back on that now that we’re at the end and see sort of the progression. Which I think is quite nice.

This has reinforced my inclusion of this worksheet in future iterations of this project, especially as it is in line with the constructivist approach of this project in which students can self-reflect (Allen 2022). I also realised and vocalised during the focus group that I should have sent the students scans of the worksheet so they had the ‘receipt’ to this too, but the students clarified that I did ask them to take pictures of the worksheet and I brought the worksheets in for the students to look at again, so they didn’t feel like they missed out on it. Nonetheless, I will in the future send the students scans of their answered worksheets too to keep and reflect on.

b. Understanding Learning Outcomes (LOs)

I discuss this in the slide deck, but I did want to reflect on whether I should clarify from the start that the criteria in the SKMs are adapted from the unit’s LOs. I felt like I had a ‘gotcha’ moment with the students in the focus group when I clarified that the criteria are from the LOs. I don’t want the students to feel like they’ve been caught out or a trick has been played on them. Having said that, I don’t want the students to lose the experience of reading the SKM criteria and absorbing them because they equate the criteria with the standardised – sometimes dry/formal – language of the LOs. That might undo the aim of this project. I have not yet decided how to approach this in the future and will need to consider this more.

c. Practicalities of the survey

I asked the students how they felt about rating themselves on a Likert Scale and thus quantifying their confidence regarding their skills and knowledge. The students said they didn’t have any issues with that, though one mentioned that they were nervous about appearing ‘overly confident’ if they rated themselves too high (Student 2). Another mentioned that they preferred the Likert Scale to the text boxes as:

Student 3: I feel like sometimes I don’t really know what to put in those boxes, so it’s nice to just kind of have the numbers. Unless I have like really strong thoughts on something, but I would just tell you like I don’t think it like needs to go in the boxes. So, I quite liked having the numbers as well because again I think it was helpful.

So, I can make some of the text boxes optional in the future (apart from asking students to set objectives for themselves). This ‘choicemaking’ is also in line with the constructivist approach (Bufkin & Bryde, 1996, p. 59, cited in Allen 2022).

References

Allen, A (2022) ‘An Introduction to Constructivism: Its Theoretical Roots and Impact on Contemporary Education’, Journal of Learning Design and Leadership, 1(1). Available at: https://ldljournal.web.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Andrew-Allen-Constructivism_JLDL_Vol1Issue1September2022.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Bufkin, L J and Bryde, S (1996) ‘Implementing a constructivist approach in higher education with early childhood educators’, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 17(2), pp 58–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1090102960170207 (Accessed 12 January 2026).

Hall, F (nd) Positive Evaluation Framework. Available at: https://positiveevaluation.myblog.arts.ac.uk/tool-kits/ (Accessed 18 September 2025).

Liamputtong, P (2011) Focus Group Methodology: Principle and Practice. SAGE Publications, ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=689539 (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Saunders, M N K et al (2023) Research Methods for Business Students, ninth edition. United Kingdom: Pearson. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/UAL/detail.action?docID=7219451 (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Appendix

Author of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (1999) Linda T Smith states that ‘methods are not neutral’ (2021). Thus, the research method I chose had to be in spirit of the ‘social / climate / racial justice‘ (ARP Unit Brief) aim of the intervention. I knew I was on the right track with focus groups as my main primary research method once I read ‘Do Focus Groups Facilitate Meaningful Participation in Social Research?’ (2011) by Barbour and Kitzinger. They discuss the concept of ‘participation’ in focus groups and how power dynamics work between the researcher and the participants who often become the ‘researched’. I wanted to steer clear of this tendency and engage my students as active participants not only through the self-assessment programme, ie, the intervention, but also in discussing its efficacy in the focus group. This is in line with the theory underpinning my intervention, i.e., constructivism (Allen 2022; Buffkin & Bryde 1996; Carlson and Blanchard 2024; University of Buffalo nd).

I didn’t use focus groups just as a shortcut to conduct interviews with multiple people. Liamputtong in Focus Group Methodology: Principle and Practice (2011) emphasises that the most significant aspect about focus groups is the group dynamics/interactions (p 50). The 3 participants I had in my group had been classmates for over a year and seemed to gel well together in class. I aimed to create an atmosphere where not only did they all have a chance to respond to my questions/prompts but they could also play off each other’s responses. This latter bit in fact generated the most interesting data, which I delve into in the blog post about findings. I also followed Liamputtong’s advice regarding asking ‘effective questions’ (pp 68-69) – I asked open-ended, neutral/non-leading questions to provide my students space to share their opinions. This was key not only for good, ethical practice in research but also because an aim of my self-assessment programme has been to empower students in their learning journeys and I wanted them to feel empowered to frankly share their experiences here too.

Still, ethical research was a paramount concern for me throughout the process. I ensured to share the participation information sheet well in advance of the focus group. I chatted to them about the project, explained the context, and gave them the chance to ask me any questions they had. They all signed the consent sheet. I emphasised that their responses would remain anonymous and asked them to respect each other’s anonymity too by not sharing the discussions outside of the group. As per BERA’s (2024) advice, I have also been reflexive in my process and considered my students’ and my well-being in the research process and in creating the slides and blog posts for the assessment:

‘This means that ethical decision-making becomes an actively deliberative, ongoing and iterative process of assessing and reassessing the situation and issues as they arise. Good researchers are reflexive and consider both general issues and the specifics of each research situation.’ (BERA 2o24)

A resource I found especially useful is The Handbook of Focus Group Research (2011) by Greenbaum. He succinctly provides the common mistakes made with focus groups. Though a lot of it is addressed to corporations conducting market research, I could adapt the advice for my scholarly research. For instance, I was sure I needed qualitative data for my research and thus focus groups would be useful – as Greenbaum warns that focus groups are not an apt method when huge amounts of quantitative data is needed. The ‘Procedural Mistakes’ that Greenbaum warns against helped me with my research process. I ensured that:

1. my research objectives were clearly defined – I was assessing the efficacy of my self-assessment programme
2. the participants were suitable – the students had all participated in all the stages of the self-assessment programme and read the reports I had generated
3. the moderator was adequate – as the creator of this research, I was in the best position to be the moderator

As a fan of quantitative data analysis, I kept Greenbaum’s advice to not quantify the focus group results in mind in this process. This was all the more significant because I only had 3 participants in the focus group, so each person carried 33.3% weightage in their response. Any deviation from each other would imply a huge shift in numbers, thus a more qualitative representation of their responses would be more suitable. I discuss this further in the blog post about my findings.

References

Allen, A (2022) ‘An Introduction to Constructivism: Its Theoretical Roots and Impact on Contemporary Education’, Journal of Learning Design and Leadership, 1(1). Available at: https://ldljournal.web.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Andrew-Allen-Constructivism_JLDL_Vol1Issue1September2022.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Barbour, R and Kitzinger, R (2011) ‘Do Focus Groups Facilitate Meaningful Participation in Social Research?’, Developing Focus Group Research. London: SAGE Publications. Available at: https://methods-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/book/edvol/developing-focus-group-research/chpt/do-focus-groups-facilitate-meaningful-participation (Accessed 7 January 2026).

BERA (2024) ‘Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition’. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Bufkin, L J and Bryde, S (1996) ‘Implementing a constructivist approach in higher education with early childhood educators’, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 17(2), pp 58–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1090102960170207 (Accessed 12 January 2026).

Carlson, K and Blanchard, D (2024) ‘Restructuring Power Dynamics within a Classroom: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study’, The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning, 3(2). Available at: https://red.mnstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=ijgll (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Greenbaum, T L (2011) The Handbook of Focus Group Research. SAGE Publications. Available at: https://methods-sagepub-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/book/mono/the-handbook-for-focus-group-research/toc (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Liamputtong, P (2011) Focus Group Methodology: Principle and Practice. SAGE Publications, ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=689539 (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Smith, L T (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

— (2021) ‘Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production: Webinar 2’, National Centre for Research Methods. [Online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQ09rPQFyA (Accessed 7 January 2026).

University of Buffalo (nd) ‘Constructivism: Creating experiences that facilitate the construction of knowledge’. Available at: https://www.buffalo.edu/catt/teach/develop/theory/constructivism.html#:~:text=Constructivist%20Classroom%20Activities-,What%20is%20constructivism%3F,%2Dexisting%20knowledge%20(schemas) (Accessed 2 January 2026).

It took me a tutorial with Carys to understand that what we are assessing in the ARP Unit is the efficacy of our intervention, instead of the intervention itself. Once I understood this, I played around with a few different research methods. Here are some thoughts I had at different stages:

1. Collaborative/creative ethnography: As a creative writer who has dabbled in autoethnography in her PhD, I wondered if this method would be interesting and beneficial. I brushed up a little on autoethnography with some readings by Carolyn Ellis and her collaborators (2000, 2004, 2007, 2011). What pulls me towards this research method is the centring of the involved participants’ voices as opposed to observing a context as an outsider in the ethnography research method and thus indulging in exoticisation, as discussed by Saunders et al:
   
   ‘From the 1700s to the early 1900s, ethnography was developed to study cultures in societies that had been brought under the rule of a colonial power, to facilitate imperialist control and administration.’ (2023, p 197)
   
   Conquergood (1991), Riedmann (1993) and Ellis (2007) also discuss the colonialist attitudes in entering a culture and writing about it as an outsider, often motivated by monetary and/or professional gain (discussed in Ellis et al 2011). As the focus of my intervention has been making my students feel more in control of their learning journeys, this research method also seemed fitting. Moreover, as the intervention was with my students studying creative magazine writing, it also made sense to have them participate in some creative writing as a research method. I was new to collaborative/creative autoethnography, and did some research for resources such as Universal Methods of Design by Hanington and Martin (2012), Collaborative Autoethnography by Chang et al (2013), ‘Collaborative Autoethnography and Duoethnography’ by Salmons (2023), and an interesting literary and arts online magazine called The AutoEthnographer. However, during this process, I discussed this method further with my tutor and tutorial group and realised that A. this method may not fit in the timeframe of the ARP unit, and B. it would make the students focus more on their learning journeys – which is what the intervention is – as opposed to examining the efficacy of the intervention. I do not regret the research I’ve conducted so far on this method though as it is something I may include in the intervention in coming years.
   
   
2. Interviews: This is a research method I have used previously in my PhD research and felt comfortable with. Semi-structured interviews with my students would generate detailed qualitative data that would be useful for assessing the efficacy of my intervention. I prefer semi-structured over structured interviews because they enable me to ask questions, respond to my interviewees’ replies and interpret the data (Saunders et al 2023, p 441). Doing 1-on-1 interviews would be time-consuming, however, so I kept interviews with the previous cohort who had participated in the intervention last year as a back-up method in case I ran into some trouble in engaging my current cohort in the research. An issue that one of my peers Paul Bench raised in a group tutorial was around selection bias – that the students from the prior cohort who may be more willing to take some time out for the interview may be students who like me and/or enjoyed the unit I taught. The only way I could foresee alleviating this was contacting all the students from last year’s cohort and not favouring any student. Fortunately, I had enough of a response from this current cohort and didn’t have to use this as a back-up.
   
   
3. Focus group: This method seemed like the best combination of everything I was seeking. It was new to me and thus an exciting challenge, following the advice given in the ARP Unit briefing (‘Experiment with different methods — ideally that are new to you‘). It would generate qualitative data with my students and platform their voices – thus being in the spirit of the research [especially as Linda T Smith (2021) states that ‘methods are not neutral’]. It would be semi-structured in nature, thus allowing me to respond to my students’ responses and follow their trains of thought. And it would be more suitable for the scope of the project and the time we had. I did some reading on this finalised research method, which I discuss in further detail in the blog post about focus group reflections.
   

References

Chang, H et al (2013) Collaborative Autoethnography. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Collaborative-Autoethnography/Chang-Ngunjiri-Hernandez/p/book/9781598745566 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Conquergood, D (1991). ‘Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics’, Communication Monographs, 58(2), pp 179-194. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759109376222 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Ellis, C (2004) The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. California: Altamira Press.

— (2007) ‘Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives: Relational Ethics in Research with Intimate Others’, Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1), pp 3-29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800406294947 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Ellis, C and Bochner, A P (2000) ‘Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity’, Handbook of Qualitative Research. Edited by N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln. California: Sage, pp 733-768.

Ellis, C et al (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Hanington, B and Martin, B (2012) Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions. Quarto Publishing Group USA. ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=3399583 (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Riedmann (1993) Science That Colonizes: A Critique of Fertility Studies in Africa. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Salmons, J (2023) ‘Collaborative Autoethnography and Duoethnography’, Sage Research Methods Community. Available at: https://researchmethodscommunity.sagepub.com/blog/collaborative-autoethnography (Accessed 6 January 2026).

Saunders, M N K et al (2023) Research Methods for Business Students, ninth edition. United Kingdom: Pearson. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/UAL/detail.action?docID=7219451 (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Smith, L T (2021) ‘Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production: Webinar 2’, National Centre for Research Methods. [Online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQ09rPQFyA (Accessed 7 January 2026).

The AutoEthnographer (2021) Available at: https://theautoethnographer.com/artistic-autoethnography-artifacts/ (Accessed 7 January 2026).

My Action Research Project is titled ‘Testing the Efficacy of Student Self-Assessments in Learning Journeys’. This project tests the efficacy of a Teaching and Learning project I piloted in 2024 in a unit I teach to BA 2nd years on creative magazine writing at LCC. I chose this project because it was something I had already been working on and I was curious to test its efficacy and develop it further.

Originally, I played around with creating a project based around decolonising our teaching practice as that is something I am keenly interested in. However, a (POC) colleague in my department also did a project on the same topic the previous year through the PgCert (and did it really well!). I was afraid of subconsciously copying their work and/or not creating a unique contribution. And to be frank, I resist the urge to be pigeonholed as another POC solely focused on decolonising. Thus, I chose the self-assessment project instead.

In opposition, at first I was a bit confused about whether the chosen project meets the social, racial and climate justice aims of the ARP Unit and PgCert course. While I have been actively engaged in those arenas throughout the PgCert and otherwise in my research and work, I think I began labelling and boxing-up identities – even intersectional (Crenshaw 1991) ones – across social and racial lines. Therefore, it wasn’t immediately apparent to me that my project was driven by a socially engaged objective too. It took some chats with my tutor Carys and tutorial group to understand that empowering students – diverse students, from different backgrounds – in their learning journeys is a socially motivated aim too. Alongside, the project enables the lecturer to understand what our students’ diverse learning needs are and how we can address them in our teaching.

In my research on this topic, I came across the concept of constructivism. Examining the work of key figures in constructivism such as Piaget, Dewey, and Perry, Carlson and Blanchard (2024, p 2) state that:

‘a constructivist approach to education relies heavily on learners and educators taking an active role within education to construct, and at times co-construct, learning through powerful experiences with active discovery, collaboration, and assimilation of new knowledge with previously lived experiences.’

Carlson and Blanchard thus highlight collaboration between the educator and the learner and empowering the learner. Allen (2022 p 3) echoes this and states that constructivism finds its roots within the work of Freire:

‘Freire (1970) believed education and learning are inseparable from the learner’s realities and life context. He emphasized that educators and learners should be transformed together through mutual learning and discovery (Freire, 1970).’

Carlson and Blanchard go on to discuss Young (2008) and state that solely relying on the curriculum can further inequities in society; that criticality and reflection are needed to assess how that curriculum knowledge has been acquired/developed in the first place and what our symbolic relationship is with that particular world. Thus, Carlson and Blanchard emphasise prioritising the diverse learning needs of the students instead of textbook teaching. These considerations are needed because of the power imbalance in the classroom. Carlson and Blanchard (2024, p 8) discuss Fritzgerald (2020) and state:

‘To support students in a positive learning environment, the power dynamics within the classroom must shift to be empowering and more inclusive for students. In Fritzgerald’s text (2020), he proposes updates to the Codes of Honor that juxtapose Delpit’s Codes of Power (as cited in Fritzgerald 2020), to include: “recognizing that power structures exist,” “acknowledge the purposeful intent and action of abolishing the limitations of the power structure,” “empowering each member of the learning community daily,” “invite members of the learning community into positions of authority, power, and decision making,” and “create opportunities for member to make powerful decisions that govern their outcomes” (p. 7).’

Thus, power imbalances between teacher/student and also within the student body itself – for instance, if a student is a home/international student, if a student’s first language is English or not, if a student has had the opportunities/privilege to study art before – need addressing in order to work towards an inclusive classroom.

With limited teaching time and resources, classroom teaching is often aimed at the median – not the student who is most or least confident about the subject. My project enables me to learn what different areas my students feel less confident about so that I can emphasise those within the class. These different areas could be related to what knowledge the students have been exposed to before due to privilege/opportunities, what skills the students have had a chance to develop before, and also students’ sociocultural backgrounds and lived experiences.

Moreover, in this project, I asked the students to set objectives for themselves, so they could feel empowered to work towards them through the unit. These objectives were personal and driven by the student and not myself – thus reducing competition between themselves and having the students focus on their own learning needs and journeys.

The project also gave me an opportunity to have 1-on-1 conversations with the students where I spoke directly to them about their learning needs over email, thus making them feel seen (example of the text I customised for each student in the report is given below).

Another objective of this project has been to reframe how students engage with the learning outcomes (LOs) of a unit. The criteria I created for the Skills and Knowledge Mapping surveys were mapped against the LOs of the unit. Thus, I got the students to rate their own confidence regarding the LOs of the unit in the first and last classes (with a self-reflection midway touchpoint through a worksheet – an example is shared in this blog post). By creating a radar chart (which I learnt how to do from an article by Murray [2019]) comparing the two self-assessments, the students could see their own growth through the unit and feel more confident regarding the LOs and unit assessment. On a practical standpoint, this would help students perform better in assessments and also improve UAL’s NSS and PTES scores, especially as in my programme I have seen students misunderstand how ‘intellectual stimulation’ is applicable to an arts/vocational programme, leading to lower NSS, CSS and PTES scores.

My ultimate goal is to develop this self-assessment project into a university-wide practice. As I was doing this project on a small scale with a class of only 8 students, it was easier to manually create reports for each. Of course, in larger classrooms, this would be difficult for the lecturer to do on their own and some digital tool would be needed to create the radar charts and optimise the process.

——————

Example report sent by email to student at the end of the self-assessment project:

Hi XYZ,

Thanks for filling in the second survey. Below is the visual representation of your own assessment of your growth through this Unit. The blue denotes how you rated your skills and knowledge on the first day of class and the yellow denotes how you rate them now. The farther out from the centre, the higher your confidence (7 being the maximum).

As you can see, you’ve grown a lot in confidence through these 10 weeks! It’s heartening to see your confidence jump so highly among all the different criteria. I realise your confidence score for pitching is a bit lower than others, but that should grow too with Monday’s guest talk on pitching to magazines – that’s the dedicated session on pitching in this Unit. So, I hope you celebrate your growth and that you will keep this growing confidence going into the rest of the second year and the third year and further build upon your skills and knowledge. Remember: reading and writing are your best friends in this area.

I’ll be around even after this Unit to chat about any ideas and pieces you’re working on, if you ever want to fix a chat with me. 

Here are your text-box comment reflections on what can help you continue your growth – something for you to keep in mind as you work ahead:

Q: What skill or knowledge area have you improved upon the most through this Unit? Does it match your goal at the start of the Unit (refer to the Skills and Knowledge Mapping 1) and/or the mid-point worksheet?

A: My confidence in sharing my work and my knowledge of different creative writing theories. My goal at the start of the unit was ‘Coming up with new ideas and improving my confidence when it comes to sharing my work with others’ and I feel as though I have worked on and improved this

Q: What can you do or continue doing to improve your creative magazine writing skills and knowledge?

A: Work on reflecting on my work critically and generating new ideas to write about

Q: What would you do differently if you could retake this Unit? Is that something you can apply in future units?

A: I would maybe try to write a piece for each of the writing forms rather than a select few so I could improve my skills and knowledge in them

References

Allen, A (2022) ‘An Introduction to Constructivism: Its Theoretical Roots and Impact on Contemporary Education’, Journal of Learning Design and Leadership, 1(1). Available at: https://ldljournal.web.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Andrew-Allen-Constructivism_JLDL_Vol1Issue1September2022.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2026).

Carlson, K and Blanchard, D (2024) ‘Restructuring Power Dynamics within a Classroom: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study’, The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning, 3(2). Available at: https://red.mnstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=ijgll (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Crenshaw, K (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp 1241–99. JSTOR. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039. (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Freire, P (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc.

Fritzgerald, A (2020) Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning. Wakefield, Massachusetts: CAST, Inc. Available at: https://nelson.northampton.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991001848236907361/44NORTH_INST:44NORTH_INST (Accessed 21 January 2026).

Murray, A (2019) ‘How to Create a Radar Chart in Excel’, How-To Geek. Available at: https://www.howtogeek.com/402016/how-to-create-a-radar-chart-in-excel/ (Accessed 29 September 2025).

UAL (nd) ‘What and how we teach’. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/climate-action-plan/what-and-how-we-teach (Accessed 7 January 2026).

Young, M (2008) ‘From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curriculum’, Review of Research in Education, 32(1), pp 1–28. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0091732X07308969?__cf_chl_rt_tk=.YvVcZL3XvY7l7KJ3rwhZ_z8uAflpY0hreDjMawTtnI-1769003976-1.0.1.1-xr_wwXDlENZVqrpERjK.a3C40CLtGWDBrPfyWDWZ6nM (Accessed 21 January 2026).

ETHICAL ACTION PLAN

I shared the Ethical Action Plan with my tutor Carys Kennedy in October and redrafted it through a few rounds of comments and checks, with her approval on 12 November 2025 on the proviso that I take in all her last round of comments (which I did):

Ethical Action Plan (500-750 words)*

This document is a chance for you to begin shaping your project while thinking through its ethical considerations, implications, and responsibilities. We know this might feel early in your action research journey, but this short plan is here to help pin down your ideas and work-in-progress. 

Use whatever writing format that suits you – lists, bullet points, statements or paragraphs – and follow the suggested links stated alongside some of the questions for guidance. 

A good starting point is the BERA Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition (2024) alongside the ‘Ethics Files and Resources’ on Moodle. 

When you’re ready, email your draft to your allocated tutor 48 hours in advance of you first group tutorialin the week commencing 6 October 2025, so it can help guide the focus of discussions and support your project development. 

Name: Sonali Misra

Tutor: Carys Kennedy

Date: 12 November 2025

What is the working title of your project? Also write a few sentences about the focus of your project.    Title: Testing the Efficacy of Student Self-Assessments in Learning Journeys This project will test the effectiveness of a student self-assessment programme I piloted in 2024 in a unit I created and teach. The aim of this project is to test whether these student self-assessments are beneficial for tutors understanding their students’ diverse learning needs, helping the students identify what skill and knowledge areas they should work upon in a unit, and helping students set objectives for themselves for a unit. Thus, this project more actively engages a student in their learning journeys.

What sources will you read or reference? Share 5 to 10. BERA Guidelines for Educational Research, https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online Denzin, N K and Lincoln, Y S (2000) Handbook of Qualitative Research. California: Sage. Research Methods for Business Students, https://www-vlebooks-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/Product/Index/304041?page=0&startBookmarkId=-1 Smith, L T (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Universal Methods of Design, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/UAL/detail.action?docID=3399583

What action(s) are you planning to take, and are they realistic in the time you have (Sept-Dec)? The effectiveness of the student self-assessment programme will be tested through a focus group in class time. As a contingency plan (especially as attendance has not been great for this unit), I can interview 3–4 students who are presently studying this unit and have participated in the self-assessment programme as well as from last year’s cohort who did the same.

Who will be involved, and in what way? (e.g. colleagues, students, local community…). Note, if any of your participants will be under the age years of 18yrs, please seek further advice from your tutor. I will conduct a focus group with BA 2nd year students in classroom time. As a contingency plan, I can interview 3–4 students from the BA 2nd and 3rd year cohorts outside of classroom time, either on LCC campus or on MS Teams. Both student groups are over age 18.

What are the health & safety concerns, and how will you prepare for them? o   https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/42587/health-and-safety-hub o   https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/45761/health-and-safety-policies-and-standards As the focus group data will be collected in the classroom at LCC during class hours, there should be no health and safety concerns over regular factors. As the interviews (if conducted) will be conducted on LCC or on MS Teams during working hours, there should be no health and safety concerns over regular factors.

How will you manage and protect any physical and / or digital data you collect, including the data of people involved? o   https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online#consento   https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online#privacy-data-storage I will record the focus group and interview conversations on my phone and have MS Teams call recording in the background (to help with transcription). These recordings will immediately be transferred to my work laptop and deleted from my phone. Both my phone and work laptop are password-protected. I will transcribe the conversations via MS Teams. Transcriptions will be stored on my password-protected work laptop. All data with be anonymised when shared in outputs. I will use some examples of the reports I create as a result of the student self-assessment programme in my output, but these will be for illustrative purposes and anonymised.

How will you take ethics into account in your project for participants and / or yourself? o   https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online#responsibilities-participantso   https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online#responsibilities-sponsorso   https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online#responsibilities-wellbeingo   See Emotionally Demanding Research PDF on Moodle Students will share reflections on the use and effectiveness of the student self-assessment programme. This does not include any vulnerable or private/confidential information. This could include some information to do with their insecurities or anxieties regarding their knowledge and skills relevant to the Unit. I create a safe, welcoming environment in the classroom and will emphasise that they can share as much information as they would like to. It will be emphasised that their participation is voluntary, without any offer of reward or compensation, and that they would be free to end their participation before the focus group takes place or during it, without providing a reason. Their responses will also be anonymised. I will also ask the students to respect the other participants’ anonymity and not share their names or contributions in the focus group. All this information will be relayed to them through detailed Participant Information Sheets and they will read and sign the Consent Forms afterwards.

* The form itself is around 300 words, so with your additions the total length will come to a maximum of about 1,050 words.

PARTICIPANT FACING DOCUMENTS

I sent the following documents (participation information sheet and participant consent form) to my tutor Carys Kennedy on 12 November 2025 for her feedback. She had some minor comments on some of them and approved them with the provision that I take them in, which I did:

1. Participant Information Sheet

Research project: Significance of Student Self-Assessments in Learning Journeys

Participant Information Sheet 

About this study

This study is part of my research on the PgCert Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication at UAL.

I am conducting an enquiry into the significance of student self-assessments in learning journeys. I am interested in students’ analyses of and reflections on the potential role that the Skills and Knowledge Mapping (SKM) surveys and reports played in helping you assess some of your skills and knowledge and their growth through the Creative Magazine Writing unit.

My research will analyse your reflections on the usefulness of the SKMs. The methodology will be qualitative: taking a responsive evaluation approach. This will consist of an in-depth focus group with students who have studied the Creative Magazine Writing unit and taken the SKM surveys. Responses will be analysed thematically.

What does it mean to take part?

If you take part, you are consenting to taking part in a focus group. The focus group may take between 30–40 minutes. I will audio record the focus group and transcribe it. The data will be used as the basis for academic analysis. 

If you choose to take part, you will be free to withdraw your participation before the focus group takes place or during it. You will not be obliged to give any reason for deciding not to take part.

Will my participation be kept confidential?

Your anonymity is very important. The information about you will be confidential to me, as the researcher. You will not be identified individually anywhere in the research. If I quote anything you have said in an interview, it will be anonymous. An example might be: ‘Student A said “The project is…”.’ I also ask that you respect your fellow participants’ anonymity and not share their names or contributions in the focus group.

What will happen to the results of the research project?

Analysis from the SKM reports and focus group – including quotations from you – will contribute to an academic dissertation. Your words may also be used in academic reports, papers, journal articles, or conference presentations. These may appear online. You will be anonymised through all of them.

Thank you for your contribution and participation in this study.

Contact for further information:

Dr Sonali Misra, Investigator

s.misra@lcc.arts.ac.uk

2. Participant Consent Form

Participant Consent Form

Project Title: Significance of Student Self-Assessments in Learning Journeys

You are being invited to take part in a research project. Before you decide to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the attached information sheet carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Ask if anything is unclear or if you would like more information.

• I understand that I have given my consent to be interviewed about my thoughts on Significance of Student Self-Assessments in Learning Journeys.

• I fully give my consent to take part.

• I understand that I have given approval for my opinions to be included in the research outputs. Anything I say may be used in academic papers relating to the project, although these quotations will be anonymous. I will also respect my fellow participants’ anonymity and not share their names or contributions.

• I have read the information sheet about the research project, which I have been asked to take part in and have been given a copy of this information to keep.  

• What is going to happen and why it is being done has been explained to me, and I have had the opportunity to discuss the details and ask questions. 

• Having given this consent, I understand that I have the right to withdraw from the research programme before/during the focus group, without disadvantage to myself and without having to give any reason.

• I hereby fully and freely consent to participation in the study, which has been fully explained to me.

Participant’s name (BLOCK CAPITALS):
Participant’s signature:		Date:
Investigator’s name  (BLOCK CAPITALS):
Investigator’s signature:		Date:

Contact

Investigator: Dr Sonali Misra, London College of Communication

Email: s.misra@lcc.arts.ac.uk

FOCUS GROUP/INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

For my primary research method to test the efficacy of my Skills and Knowledge Mapping (SKM) project, I decided to conduct a focus group with my 2nd year BA (Hons) Magazine Journalism and Publishing students pursuing the Creative Magazine Writing unit. As a contingency plan – as the attendance has not been great in this Unit this year – I considered doing semi-structured interviews with students who have pursued the Unit this year or in the previous year and also participated in the SKM project. In either case, the questions would remain the same.

I chose a semi-structured approach for both so that I have a guidance document to cover all the important bases but which gives us the space to follow a rich train of thought that may come up in the discussion. I ensured that my language in the questions was not leading so as not to bias student responses. I also begin the questions by establishing that the students participating in the focus group/interview had also participated in the full SKM project and read the reports I created on the basis of the SKM. These questions aim to test the efficacy of the SKM project.

I sent the following compiled questions to my tutor Carys Kennedy on 12 November 2025 and she OK’d them without any changes:

• Did you respond to both surveys, Skills and Knowledge Mapping 1 and Skills and Knowledge Mapping 2? And did you answer the midway touchpoint worksheet (1 thing I…)?
• How did it feel to evaluate your own skills and knowledge that are relevant to the Creative Magazine Writing unit?
• How did it feel to share this information with your tutor?
• Did these surveys help you set any goals for yourself when it comes to creative magazine writing skills?
• Did you read and understand the report that was created based on your responses?
• Did you find the report useful? What did you like about it? What can be improved?
• How did you find the visual depiction of your skills and knowledge through the radar chart?
• Did you find the different criteria you assessed useful and relevant to this Unit? Could you relate them to the Learning Outcomes of this Unit? Did they give you some specific terms/language to analyse your skills and knowledge sets?
• How did you find this approach vs a unit evaluation?
• Did you have any thoughts about your control or participation over your learning journey through this Unit? Did the surveys and reports play any role in that?
• Any last comments or thoughts?

Introduction

This report focuses on the Intervention I carried out around decolonising knowledge, literature and publishing for MA Publishing students at LCC in May 2025.

The Intervention is born out of my positionality (Bayeck 2022) of being an Indian woman academic in Publishing Studies in the UK. As the only POC teaching on the course, I feel the passion and pressure (pressure to be the ‘voice that you didn’t sign up for’ is discussed by Garrett 2024) to decolonise the curriculum and broaden the predominantly white British reading lists with other perspectives. I have been mostly happy to do so as my research is about the postcoloniality of British publishing. In fact, one of my first actions in this job was to recommend books from Asian and African academics to the LCC Library. My positionality is also significant since I – as an academic, writer and former publisher – am personally impacted by my research and wish to enact change to benefit myself and future academics, writers, readers, and publishers.

This report utilises secondary research regarding theories discussed in the IP Unit and my independent reading, along with the primary research I conducted via a student survey, feedback from my manager, peer feedback, and my own reflection on the execution of my Intervention.

Context

I am a Lecturer on MA Publishing at LCC. My manager received funding from the LCC Climate, Racial and Social Justice Fund to create a student publication on decolonising the LCC Library’s Special Collections and brought me on board to conduct a one-off session. I delivered a session on theories around colonialism, imperialism, hegemony, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, and decolonising, applying them to spheres of literature and publishing. The students used the theories and discussions to foreground their engagement with the chosen archival items to create their publication. I also wrote a foreword for the publication. Images of the publication and my foreword are in the Appendix. More information about the context can be found here.

Inclusive Learning

As future publishers, our students have the opportunity to improve the publishing system from within – as employees at established firms – or from outside – as founders and creators of new publishing projects. Thus, it is key that our students are exposed to theories around decolonising to understand the powerful role British publishing plays and how it impacts other nations’ literature and knowledge systems (Misra 2024). Decolonising allows students to critically question the curricula and note the absences, the silences (Moncrieffe et al 2024; National Education Union nd; UCL 2014). This critical eye is important for intersectionality to understand the complex power dynamics at play in identity politics. The intersectionality I focused on within my session was between race, nationality and language. I did so by examining:

• the position of the English language as the ‘the world’s main commercial language’ (Graham 1998, pp 25-26) and as a colonial remnant in India
• the privileging of white British voices within English-language publishing and literature (Misra 2024), as is within the ‘institutional whiteness’ (Ahmed 2012, p 33, cited in Lukkien et al 2024, p 5) of British academia

More information around this intersectionality can be found in my foreword to the publication (see Appendix).

Reflection and Evaluation

I have combined these two sections as I already carried out my Intervention and can reflect on and evaluate its process.

The biggest drawback was something I knew would be an issue – I only had half an hour to cover immense, important themes in a one-off session. Moreover, the session was only delivered to volunteering students (10 out of class total of 28), so the entire cohort didn’t engage with it. The peer feedback from my IP Unit group echoed this constructive feedback:

Laura-Beth: ‘Short time for session, broad themes and subjects, maybe ask students to focus one aspect and the present it to the class to show understanding of learning. Is there scope to make something in the course assessment specifically focus on this i.e a blog post, essay?’

Paul: ‘Great to acknowledge that it needs to be embedded. Would be great to offer specific ways this could happen in class activities/assignments etc.’

I agree with these points. However, I chose to treat this Intervention as a positive opportunity – a pilot – to test student response to decoloniality themes and embedding them within the course. I conducted an anonymous short survey for this, sharing the link after the session via email. The survey sample size was anyway small (1o students) and only 4 answered (40% response rate). Thus, I realise this data must be taken with a grain of salt. My IP Unit group peer Misha raised a good point: ‘If student response rate is too low and hard to manage, maybe you can try to collect students’ feedback during the session, rather than afterward?’ Ideally – and in future – I would do this. But I couldn’t as there wasn’t enough time in the 30-minute session.

a. Survey Findings

Overall, students felt they learnt something new and useful from the session:

Regarding the use of teaching theories around decoloniality for lifelong learning (discussed in Blog Task 3 and by Sadiq 2023 regarding diversity), it is important to note that three students could see the relevance in their careers:

This was heartening to see due to the long-term impact I hope this Intervention will have (discussed in Inclusive Learning section).

Two students felt this teaching should be embedded in the course, while one was unsure and another said no (latter two didn’t provide a reason). The two saying yes said that it should be embedded in the MA Publishing Context unit (discussed more in Action section). To have more open dialogue and show students the relevance of decoloniality in their student life, I shared some information regarding unconscious bias and Awarding Gaps at British universities (inspired from our IP workshops). One student liked the video excerpt I played about ‘white curriculum’ (UCL 2014). The slides from my session are attached in the Appendix.

Regarding the curation of the Special Collections artefacts by LCC Librarians, a student had this insightful thought: ‘I think instead of approaching decolonisation whereby we shed light on works that discussed, shared, celebrated ideas and views now deemed wrong, offensive or inappropriate, we could instead look for works that got sidelined because of where they came from or who made them, and give those the spotlight. Just some thoughts, may not be applicable.’ This view is extremely applicable as it is within the spirit of decolonisation – instead of just critiquing the canon, we must open the canon to voices that have been so far silenced. I will take this feedback on board if we repeat this project.

b. Manager Feedback

I asked my manager for her feedback to the session, and she stated:

Her comments underscore the significance of engaging with these foundational theories before diving into the activity as it led to a richer discussion. The students were able to interact with the artefacts from a better-informed position, with a more critical eye. I appreciate my manager’s agreement in embedding these theories in a formal manner within the course for the benefit of the entire cohort.

Action

My next actions include developing a longer lecture and activity on this for the Context unit and also using this experience as a foundation for my Action-Research Project (ARP). I have so far believed that teaching staff must carry the weight of the learning and provide knowledge to willing students since they pay high fees to attend university. However, in doing so, I became a gatekeeper and authority figure in the classroom, which was not my aim. Through discussions in the IP Unit (and realisations I’ve had in my blog posts and interacting with peers’ blogs), I have realised that I must democratise my classroom and teaching. Thus, in the future, I will ask the students to do some readings before the Context session and leave more time for class discussion and activities. Inspired by the feedback I received from my tutor Victor, I will also create a ‘collective resource’ to which my students and colleagues can add recommendations throughout the course. This could be one of the aims for my ARP.

For the ARP, I am considering organising a hybrid panel of publishers and academics from around the world to platform voices not often heard in British academia. Also, I will include the students and other (non-POC) teaching staff to create a rich list of resources in the ‘collective resource’ throughout the course for the different topics we teach from different perspectives. By doing so, I will empower students to include voices from their cultural and national contexts (encouraging intersectionality) and encourage colleagues to have these conversations within their classrooms too.

Conclusion

This Intervention served well as a pilot to show that students can be eager to learn about theories around decoloniality and appreciate its application in their careers. My positionality is significant regarding decoloniality and EDI due to my professional interests and my personal position as an Indian woman writer and academic. However, I must extend the social-justice aims and inclusivity to the methods I employ, as Smith rightly (2021) states: ‘methods are not neutral’. Thus, I aim to democratise my methods by enabling and empowering students to engage with decolonising. While my PhD is based on postcolonial theory , I am by no means an authority on all relevant subject knowledge, especially from different global perspectives. Thus, in this process I will develop my own knowledge and become a better-informed educator. By including both students and colleagues in this process, I will also enact long-term, sustainable intersectional social justice as I will no longer be the sole person pressured to include decoloniality and intersectionality within the course as the only POC teaching staff.

References

Ahmed, S (2012) On Being Included. Duke University Press.

Altbach, P G and Teferra, D (1998) Publishing and Development: A Book of Readings. Massachusetts: Bellagio Publishing Network.

Ashcroft, B et al (1989) The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures. London: Routledge.

Batty, D (2020) ‘Only a fifth of UK universities say they are “decolonising’ curriculum”, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/only-fifth-of-uk-universities-have-said-they-will-decolonise-curriculum.

Bayeck, R Y (2022) ‘Positionality: The Interplay of Space, Context and Identity’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 21, pp 1-9. DOI: 10.1177/16094069221114745.

Brouillette, S (2007) Postcolonial Writers in the Global Literary Marketplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Casanova, P (2004) The World Republic of Letters. Translated by M B DeBevoise. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Chakava, H (1996) Publishing in Africa: One Man’s Perspective. Massachusetts: Bellagio Publishing Network.

Gandhi, L (1998) Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Garrett, R (2024) ‘Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp 1-15. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767724.2024.2307886 (Accessed 17 July 2025).

Graham, G (1998) ‘Multinationals and Third World Publishing’, Publishing and Development: A Book of Readings. Edited by Philip G Altbach and Damtew Teferra. Massachusetts: Bellagio Publishing Network, pp 17-30.

Huggan, G (2001) The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins. London: Routledge.

Lukkien, T et al (2024) ‘Addressing the diversity principle–practice gap in Western higher education institutions: A systematic review on intersectionality’, British Educational Research Journal, pp 1-9.

Merriam, S B et al (2011) ‘Power and positionality: Negotiating insider/outsider status within and across cultures’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20(5), pp 405–416. DOI: 10.1080/02601370120490 (Accessed 10 July 2025).

Misra, S (2024) Whose words are we reading? The Cartelisation of Anglophone Trade Book Publishing and Its Postcolonial Impact: The Case of India. PhD Thesis. University of Stirling.

Moncrieffe, M et al (2024) The BERA Guide to Decolonising the Curriculum: Equity and Inclusion in Educational Research and Practice. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/the-bera-guide-to-decolonising-the-curriculum (Accessed 21 July 2025).

Muldoon, J (2019) ‘Academics: it’s time to get behind decolonising the curriculum’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/20/academics-its-time-to-get-behind-decolonising-the-curriculum (Accessed 21 July 2025).

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Sadiq, A (2023) ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right | Asif Sadiq | TEDxCroydon’, TEDx Talks [Online]. YouTube. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw (Accessed 20 July 2025).

Smith, L T (2021) ‘Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production: Webinar 2’, National Centre for Research Methods. [Online]. YouTube. 22 December. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQ09rPQFyA (Accessed 22 July 2025).

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Appendix

1. For easy reference, here is what I wrote for the Formative, which provides context to my Intervention:

‘My PhD research analysed the postcolonial impact of the British publishing industry upon the Global South, with a focus on India, due to some business practices. I teach on the MA Publishing programme, and I am one of two POC in our overall department of Journalism & Publishing (while I am the only POC on the Publishing course). Coincidentally (or is it?), both of us are interested in decolonising our subjects for our students to enable them to engage with more perspectives and widen their horizons. It is helpful that my colleague also did the PgCert last year, so we are able to have these discussions foregrounded in the Inclusive Practices Unit.

My manager appreciates the expertise I bring and wished for me to apply it in a one-off session with some of our MA students – the ones who volunteered for an extra-curricular project, Decolonising the Library Collection. My manager was awarded some funding for it and brought me on board. While I have spoken to the MA students more generally about my research in one lecture, this was the first time I engaged them in foundational theories of colonialism, imperialism, hegemony, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, and decolonising, and applied them to the literature and publishing spheres.

In my Intervention Plan, I will assess the execution of this one-off session using my own experience of delivering the lecture, the feedback from my manager, and the feedback from the students in a short anonymous survey I conducted. I will then examine whether it would be useful to include such a session in a more permanent and sustainable manner within the main teaching so that the entire class can benefit from it as opposed to the one-third that volunteered for this extra-curricular project. I will also discuss whether it is more helpful to have one lecture fully dedicated to postcolonialism and decolonising, or if it is more impactful if we address them during all of our teaching.’

2. Here are the slides I used for my session:

3. Here is the foreword I wrote for the publication, inspired by my own session and the discussions we had around the politics of the English language as a colonial remnant:

4. Here is the overall beautiful publication that our MA Publishing student volunteers produced in a tight turnaround:

Figures 5–10: Snapshots of the Decolonising the Archive publication (2025) produced by MA Publishing student volunteers

Bradbury (2020) engages with the obstacles bilingual students face by applying Critical Race Theory (CRT) to education policy. Bradbury states that ‘policy is a tool for the continuation of white dominance, not a neutral bystander’ (2020, p 244). Bradbury emphasises this privileging of whiteness by referencing Leonardo (2004): ‘whitedominated field of education’ (cited in Bradbury 2020, p 245). This harkens to Lukkien et al 2024 resource for Blog Task 1 [‘institutional whiteness’ of British academia (Ahmed 2012, p 33, cited in Lukkien et al 2024, p 5)]. Garrett (2024) also engages with CRT and intersectionality while discussing Awarding Gaps, colonial structures of HE, and the differing intersectional identities highlighted on page 7. The obstacles that racialised people face are portrayed in Channel 4 Entertainment video (2020). Even young schoolchildren are aware of systemic oppression. It’s heartbreaking to see that they’ve had a ‘talk’ from their parents about the racism the kids might face. And so must our UAL POC students must think and feel. The way I wish to improve my teaching is by considering how I can democratise my classroom and invite students into these conversations about our harsh reality, without burdening the POC students to expose their trauma to be seen as ‘legitimate’, like the students in Garrett’s study (2024) felt they had to in academia. As a POC researcher and academic myself, I could have easily been one of Garrett’s interviewees.

Thus, it was frustrating to watch The Telegraph video (2022) about rising ‘woke’ culture at British HEs. The white Philosophy professor – and the two other POC researchers – in the video conduct bad research to come to a ‘gotcha’ moment about the apparent lack of freedom of speech and inefficacy of anti-racism trainings. They employ the age-old refrain from people who benefit from the status quo: let things remain, we should be ‘neutral’, our free speech is being infringed. Freedom of speech comes with responsibility. And how can academia be ‘neutral’? If one is ‘apolitical’ then the status quo benefits them – which is a political stance in itself (Sorila nd; The Beacon 2020). The video is ironic because the presenter’s hypothesis is disproven by the interview data they share – yet they don’t realise this. The students interviewed don’t feel their speech is restricted, they say they respect free speech and are fine to amend their language to be inclusive in the classroom. The so-called ‘evidence’ the last researcher shares about Cambridge not being institutionally racist is the lack of HR reports, which is frankly bad research with logical holes and missing nuance. Microaggressions exist. If the system and policies are biased – as discussed above – then people won’t feel comfortable reporting against racism, thus (the lack of) formal HR reports cannot be the sole evidence.

The Telegraph video reminds me of interviewing for a job at another HE. Their job pack repeatedly asked us to demonstrate our dedication to EDI, which I did. Yet, when I asked my interviewers what they were doing to further EDI at an institution level, I got stumped or aggressive responses. I was not offered the job – and I am not sorry about it. Performative EDI is another form of oppression, as examined by Sadiq (2023). While Sadiq examines identity factors as distinct and does not consider that his son’s negative experiences at school were due to his intersectional identity of being a POC child with ADHD, I do agree with most of Sadiq’s points. Sadiq discusses how minoritised people face the burden of representing their entire communities (also discussed in Blog Task 2). Sadiq points out the biases within diversity trainings being centred around UK and US contexts, thus missing international and even local nuances. This is key at UAL, with its multicultural and international student population. I agree with Sadiq that EDI must be embedded in lifelong learning and ‘diversity’ cannot be a short lecture or module that can be ticked off the agenda as something ‘nice to do’. This is something I consider in my Intervention Plan’s future scope.

References

Ahmed, S (2012) On Being Included. Duke University Press.

Bradbury, A (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp 241-260. DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2019.1599338 (Accessed 17 July 2025).

Channel 4 Entertainment (2020) ‘Heartbreaking Moment When Kids Learn About White Privilege | The School That Tried to End Racism’ [Online]. YouTube. 30 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg (Accessed 20 July 2025).

Garrett, R (2024) ‘Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp 1-15. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767724.2024.2307886 (Accessed 17 July 2025).

Leonardo, Z (2004) ‘The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of “White Privilege”‘, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(2), pp 137–152. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00057.x (Accessed 22 July 2025).

Lukkien, T et al (2024) ‘Addressing the diversity principle–practice gap in Western higher education institutions: A systematic review on intersectionality’, British Educational Research Journal, pp 1-9.

Sadiq, A (2023) ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right | Asif Sadiq | TEDxCroydon’, TEDx Talks [Online]. YouTube. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw (Accessed 20 July 2025).

The Beacon (2020) ‘EDITORIAL: “Apolitical” is political’. Available at: https://www.upbeacon.com/article/2020/02/opinion-editorial-apoliticalispolitical (Accessed 20 July 2025).

The Telegraph (2022) ‘Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke’ [Online]. YouTube. 5 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU (Accessed 20 July 2025).

Sorila, H (nd) ‘A Point of View: Being Apolitical Is a Political Stance’, The Inclusion Solution. Available at: https://theinclusionsolution.me/a-point-of-view-being-apolitical-is-a-political-stance/ (Accessed 20 July 2020).