By Tricia Seifert, Associate Professor of Adult & Higher Education at Montana State University
Everyone had a story that connected them to rural students. Maybe they were from a rural place themselves, having moved to a bigger community where less sky was in view between buildings and confronting a public transit system with pent up tears and frustration. Or maybe they had stood at the crossroads in a small community during a recruiting trip and saw with fresh eyes how big their campus must feel to students whose town has nine buildings along Main Street.
This was the start to the excellent Rural Student Success Unconference hosted by the University of Georgia, March 19-20, 2021. Higher education leaders, faculty and staff members, college counselors, and college access advocates met virtually to discuss obstacles and opportunities to support rural students’ success.
There was empathy and understanding for students, whose hometowns are often referred to as the middle of ‘nowhere’, that they indeed come from ‘somewhere’ special. It might be in the clarity of the cicadas’ song on a summer night or literally watching the storm come in from across the vast plain. Students from rural communities bring unique experiences and strengths to their postsecondary education. As Dr. Nicholas Hillman from the University of Wisconsin stated in his keynote kicking off the unconference, “Rural areas are often looked at in a deficit-based way and we need to see rural areas as asset-based. Place matters.”
Students’ Strengths
Growing up on a farm or ranch, far from town, rural students often bring an incredible resourcefulness to postsecondary study. They have often perfected how to make do with what is available. Like MacGyver from the 1980s TV show, they have figured out how to use a single tool for three purposes.
Going to a movie (a 100 mile roundtrip drive) may be quite the outing. Amusement and recreation is often what is available at home. The night sky can be pretty awesome television or a large tree and its expansive branches might be the perfect place to climb and imagine new worlds.
Looking toward the Crazy Mountains from outside Lewistown, Montana (population 5,729)
Students from rural communities, who have gone away to college (and nearly all have done so because of the paucity of postsecondary options close to home)1, are leaders in their communities. In a small school, they were involved in sports and music and science fair and FFA. To field a sports team or have a choir, everyone in the school takes part. Rural students are used to getting involved, pitching in, and leading.
Recognizing rural students’ assets, higher education policy makers and leaders need not presume to know what is best for them. Again, Dr. Hillman called out elitist paternalism in his conference keynote address. The opportunity is to ask students directly what would be helpful in supporting their success. This conference tweet from Dr. Matt Newlin says it all.
The conversation might need to be an invitation for students to name and claim the strengths they bring to the college experience. It may continue with students identifying how they leverage their strengths of hard work, resourcefulness, and leadership within their campus community and toward their success.
Community Assets
Extrapolating from the students to their home communities, land grant institutions (like my home university, Montana State) have the opportunity and obligation to build relationships with rural communities that serve relevant community needs, respect ways of knowing and being, and demonstrate reciprocity and responsibility. For a thorough description of the 4Rs, please read the excellent piece by Kirkness & Barnhardt (1991)2 and more contemporary articles by Pidgeon (2014)3 and Wimmer (2016)4.
The 4Rs (respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility) provide the pillars upon which to meaningfully collaborate and create with indigenous communities (and I believe other communities that historically have been marginalized and colonized). When engagement is grounded in this fashion, it uncenters elite paternalism. Rather, it invites a critical perspective of working with not for the community. It centers the communities’ knowledge and culture, which Dr. Darris Means called higher education leaders to do in his conference keynote. This requires an anti-racist approach to listening to rural communities of color (Black communities across the southern USA, Latino communities from the wide-ranging diaspora, and Indigenous nations), learning from these communities’ experiences, and supporting their leadership toward a community-envisioned future.
This work with communities takes time and commitment. It cannot be fly-by-night or episodic. It requires a long-game view as Dr. Maria Lunes-Torres spoke to in the conference’s closing keynote. Earning the trust of the communities with whom we work takes (and should take) time. Weaving opportunities, like the Rural Student Success Initiative, into the fabric of a community is a process. The goal is that the community recognizes its contribution and the institution’s commitment to the initiative. The long-game view is also evident in the ALL Georgia program, a multi-faceted operational commitment housed in the Division of Academic Enhancement at the University of Georgia.
These initiatives exemplify in words, actions, AND funding what can happen when higher education leaders and stakeholders support rural students and their communities not just today but tomorrow as well.
Opportunities, Resources & Events
Are you interested in how you or your organization can better support rural students and communities? Great works is being done in the rural education front.
Do you know of other conferences, books, articles, people to follow on Twitter who focus on rural education issues? Please leave a comment. Let’s crowdsource a compendium of international resources.
References
1 Hillman, N. W. (2016). Geography of college opportunity: The case of education deserts. American Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 987-1021.
2 Kirkness, V. J., & Barnhardt, R. (1991). First Nations and higher education: The four R’s—Respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility. Journal of American Indian Education, 1-15.
3 Pidgeon, M. (2014). Moving beyond good intentions: Indigenizing higher education in British Columbia universities through institutional responsibility and accountability. Journal of American Indian Education, 7-28.
4 Wimmer, R. J. (2016). The “4 Rs Revisited,” again: Aboriginal education in Canada and implications for leadership in higher education. In Assembling and Governing the Higher Education Institution (pp. 257-270). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
By: Frederick (Rick) Ezekiel, PhD, Director of Equitable Learning, Health and Wellness, Centennial College, Toronto, Canada
SUMMARY
Postsecondary educators have been increasingly focused on supporting positive student mental health over the past decades. Postsecondary institutions are uniquely positioned to support a demographic of students who experience the greatest risk of first onset of mental illness as a result of the developmental trajectory of many common mental illnesses (within the 16-24 age window; Jones, 2013). Additionally, poor mental health and toxic stress have a detrimental impact on learning and academic performance. My research seeks to understand disparities in mental health outcomes among students with marginalized sociodemographic identities in Canada, and the relationship between mental health and learning with marginalized communities. Through this work, I identified that marginalized sociodemographic groups experience languishing mental health at rates 1.6 – 3.4 times that of their peers. Additionally, much of the difference in academic performance among students with marginalized sociodemographic identities was statistically explained by disparities in mental health. As we expand our focus on enhancing student mental health, we must critically examine sociocultural factors influencing disparities in mental health outcomes among postsecondary students. Of equal importance, we must examine institutional actions which could begin to address the systemic barriers and mechanisms through which these inequities emerge.
Background
Stress, Mental Health and Learning
Stress is a natural part of the human condition, and can be performance enhancing at low to moderate levels. Stress is more likely to be experienced as positive or performance enhancing when we have sufficient control over a situation, perceive a reasonable ability to overcome the stressor, and have access to positive psychosocial supports and safe environments. However, at chronic and severe levels, stress can become maladaptive and lead to reduced performance outcomes, including in postsecondary learning environments.
Visualization based on definitions of positive stress, tolerable stress, and toxic stress from the US National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.
The stress response mobilizes the sympathetic nervous system, leading to the well known fight, flight or freeze response. This response has had adaptive value over the course of human evolution, when stressors often involved reacting to immediate threats to our survival. However, the stress response undermines and utilizes limited executive cognitive functions which are necessary for learning and the demonstration of what one has learned, which can result in reduced academic performance at toxic levels (Owens et al., 2008).
Stress and Mental Health in Marginalized Sociodemographic Groups
Marginalized sociodemographic groups navigate more barriers and challenges (stressors) within our society, and postsecondary education institutions. Minority stress theory, coined by Ilan Meyer (2003), articulates empirically supported findings where marginalized sociodemographic groups experience increased risk for distress due to more frequent and deleterious experiences of discrimination, harassment, systemic oppression / barriers, stigmatization and social isolation. Common examples in postsecondary contexts include: transgender students who are misgendered by a faculty member in front of the class, ‘outing’ them and contributing to broader othering impacts; racialized students seeing racial slurs, racist graffiti, or racist posters on campus, and not seeing their identities reflected in their faculty, staff or educational leaders; students with disabilities experiencing repeated events or information that are not accessible, leading to exclusion and needing to repeatedly ask for accommodations to participate in campus life; and gay, lesbian, queer, bi-sexual, questioning students coming out to family and friends, sometimes facing rejection or unsupportive reactions from loved ones.
A key goal of my research involved examining the influence of minority stress on mental health and learning within a large sample of postsecondary education students in Canada. Marginalized and disadvantaged sociodemographic groups within myresearchincluded sexual minorities (students who do not identify as heterosexual), students who identify as transgender or gender non-binary, female-identified individuals, racial and ethnic minorities (students who identify as non-white), Indigenous students, students with disabilities, and students with diagnosed psychiatric conditions.
Risk and Resilience Within Marginalized Learners: A Strengths-Based Approach
I leveraged a strengths-based approach to understanding mental health and learning within marginalized communities in this research. Part of this approach involves positioning the deficits driving disparity within the societal and institutional systems that perpetuate systemic oppression, and NOT within the individual learners or communities who hold marginalized identities. Additionally, it is crucial to recognize the strength and resilience that marginalized learners bring into the postsecondary learning environment, having overcome significant barriers and stressors over the course of their development to make it to college or university in the first place.
Significant work has examined community-specific resilience factors which serve as protective factors within marginalized communities. These community resilience factors include:
Community connection and support (Wexler et al., 2009; Kirmayer et al., 2011)
Acknowledgement of and collective meaning making related to experiences with discrimination or oppression, and galvanized purpose toward collective action (French et al., 2020; Kirmayer et al., 2011; Meyer, 2015)
Human rights protections and equitable legal recognition / protections for identity representation and full inclusion; and,
Cultural identity, connection to language & land within Indigenous communities (Kirmayer et al., 2011).
The Mental Health Continuum (Keyes, 2003) is a measure of mental health from positive psychology, which captures processes contributing to wellbeing that might be impacted by marginalization or othering, as well as factors that might confer community resilience such as those described above. Additionally, the measure is informed by the dual continuum of mental health, acknowledging that learners can experience flourishing or languishing mental health coupled with both a presence or absence of mental illness (MacKean et al., 2011). For these reasons, I selected this as the measure of choice utilized within my research.
Research Findings
Conceptual Model Summarizing Research Findings
Integrating my research findings, the conceptual model above has guided my research questions and analysis, to investigate relationships between holding a marginalized identity, mental health, and academic performance in postsecondary students. It provides a simple and overarching conceptual explanation of the research findings below.
The research findings presented below draw from analysis of the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) 2016 Canadian Reference group, which included 42,642 students from 42 postsecondary institutions (colleges and universities) across Canada (ACHA, 2016; Ezekiel, In Press).
Mental Health Among Marginalized Sociodemographic Groups
Overall findings – my research demonstrated that:
Postsecondary learners with marginalized sociodemographic identities experienced languishing mental health at 1.6-3.4 times the frequency of peers not marginalized on the same binary; and,
Disparities in mental health statistically explained much of the measurable differences in academic performance among learners with marginalized identities
A note for my fellow quantitative researchers / data nerds: These findings identified that mental health partially or fully statistically mediated the relationship between identifying with a marginalized sociodemographic group and reduced academic performance within a structural equation model.
Disparities in Languishing Mental Health by Sociodemographic Group
Within this sample, students holding a marginalized identity experienced languishing mental health at rates 1.6-3.4 times those of their peers who were not marginalized on the same binary. The chart below highlights proportions of group members identified as having languishing mental health within each identity binary. The green bars show the proportion of Individuals identifying with the dominant norm (e.g. cisgender; white; or not having a diagnosed psychiatric condition) who had languishing mental health, and the blue bars show the proportion of individuals who held marginalized identities within the binary who had languishing mental health (e.g. transgender; racialized; or having a diagnosed psychiatric condition). This visualizes significant mental health disparities, with members of marginalized sociodemographic groups experiencing languishing mental health at greater frequencies.
Note: chi-squared analysis confirmed that all frequency differences in mental health reported below were statistically significant at thresholds of p < 0.001.
Important in reviewing these findings from a strengths-based perspective is to recognize that while there were significant and large disparities in the proportion of students experiencing languishing mental health among students with marginalized identities, there were also significant numbers of individuals with marginalized identities experiencing flourishing mental health. We must interpret these disparities as reflective of systemic and deleterious stressors uniquely impacting marginalized communities (e.g. systemic and overt racism on and off campus, barriers to access and inclusion in the learning environment and campus life among students with disabilities, homophobia and transphobia on campus and in broader communities), rather than reflective of deficits within individuals who hold marginalized identities (an attribution that is not supported by the empirical neurodevelopmental or psychological research in this space).
Additionally, students identifying with marginalized sociodemographic groups reported different, and more stressors as ‘traumatic or very difficult to handle’ relative to the overall sample, underscoring the notion of increased frequency of experiencing deleterious stressors among marginalized communities in alignment with predictions from minority stress theory.
Number of stressors reported as ‘traumatic or very difficult to handle’ within the last 12 months among students with marginalized sociodemographic identities compared to the total sample.
Impacts of Intersectionality
The concept of intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the interactive effects of holding multiple marginalized identities, often leading to disparities and experiences with oppression that are more severe and complex than additive effects of disparity across two binaries. In examining whether holding multiple marginalized identities led to additive stress and reduced mental health, I identified a significant, negative correlation between the number of marginalized identities a student held, and their mental health (r (33,885) = -.194, p < 0.001). In other words, students who held more marginalized identities tended to report lower mental health.
For the purposes of this blog, I’ve summarized research findings at a very high-level. All summary statistics or narrative findings reported above were supported by robust quantitative analysis, and results that were statistically significant at rigorous thresholds. Detailed statistics and additional information on methodology can be reviewed within my complete dissertation (available on request, or through the University of Toronto thesis repository in summer 2021).
There are significant limitations and cautions to utilizing quantitative approaches to understand experiences of marginalized communities who have low representation within a given population and sample. To this end, I attempted to disaggregate data to ensure disparities were not ‘averaged out’ due to low representation. However, survey tools and quantitative analyses still wash out unique experiences of minority voices as they are normalized against experiences of the majority population. For example, the list of stressors reported as ‘traumatic or very difficult to handle’ included common experiences such as academic difficulties, career related issues, interpersonal conflict, financial difficulties, sleep difficulties and chronic health issues. They did not, however, included stressors unique to marginalized communities that could impact overall wellbeing (e.g. navigating a gender transition or being regularly misgendered among transgender students; seeing racial slurs on campus, in social media, and through other avenues, or participating in advocacy for racial justice among racialized learners; and navigating an often ongoing coming out process among sexual minorities, including fear of and experiences with family and friend rejections). In this way, quantitative research can reinforce a ‘tyranny of the majority’ by erasing experiences of minority voices.
It is imperative that we recognize these limitations, seek to leverage mixed methods approaches to more deeply understand experiences of individuals with marginalized identities, and develop representative and inclusive quantitative research tools to better understand experiences of learners with marginalized identities. Additionally, we as educators and student affairs practitioners must deeply engage the voices of learners with marginalized identities, and ensure those voices are guiding our actions to begin to reduce the disparities highlighted in my research above.
Implications and Promising Institutional Actions
My research findings further underscore that postsecondary institutions have a moral and educational imperative to create conditions where all learners have the opportunity to thrive, particularly those experiencing heightened stress as a result from marginalization or developmental vulnerabilities.
Recognizing the significant disparities identified in mental health among learners with marginalized identities and subsequent impacts on learning, it is imperative that postsecondary education institutions engage in multi-level action at the research, policy and practice levels to mitigate the undue barriers and stressors driving these outcomes. The graphic below summarizes promising priorities for institutional action to promote wellbeing, equity and learning among marginalized sociodemographic groups in postsecondary education.
As we continue to examine strategies to enhance mental health within our postsecondary communities, it is critical that we take a proportionate universality approach – focusing on universal actions enhancing wellbeing and learning for all, with proportionately more intensive supports and efforts focused on those experiencing the greatest risk due to marginalization. I will highlight some of my own reflections on promising areas for institutional action based on my policy and practice work within higher education.
Mitigating Barriers
Most postsecondary education institutions in North America are guided by legislation focused on access for learners with disabilities, as well as human rights law offering legal protection against discrimination on protected grounds. While these are critical in establishing foundational rights and protections, they more often assist in guiding against overt oppression, whereas many of the barriers and stressors captured under minority stress theory focus on day-to-day, insidious, and deleterious experiences of othering and exclusion from the dominant norms within postsecondary institutions. The process of accommodation itself is often onerous, time consuming, and stigmatizing, involving some degree of ‘outing’ of a student to access the support needed to access learning.
For example, students with learning disabilities are asked to engage with multiple professionals through very time consuming and often clunky processes (often starting with meeting with an accessible learning advisor / counsellor, followed by third party psychoeducational assessment with external providers often associated with financial and administrative burdens, followed by follow-up meetings with the psychologist and accessible learning advisor) to support their need for accommodation, when often the most pressing need is more time. This creates an ironic paradox when our institutional processes add additional stress, time, and cognitive demands for students with disabilities when their most important need is often time and attention to engage with learning.
To continue to mitigate stressors unduly impacting marginalized learners, it is critical that institutions continue to work to deeply embed universal and inclusive design for learning within the curriculum, co-curriculum, and professional service environment (Meyer & Rose, 2002). Additionally, investing in culturally safe, relevant, and responsive mental health services meeting the unique needs of marginalized learners will be critical to address these challenges. Some examples include:
Universal: focus on just-in-time service delivery models, eliminating wait lists and barriers to engagement in mental health services when students demonstrate readiness to engage;
Proportional and targeted: dedicated, culturally relevant wellbeing for Indigenous learners in connection with community; establishment of subject matter expertise and inclusion of professionals with lived experience on medical and mental health care teams (e.g. transgender care teams, sexual violence and trauma-informed care expertise, competency in offering mental health supports for LGBQ students).
Building Community and Visibility
Within my research and the broader literature, sense of belonging has been identified as a promising protective factor mediating the negative relationship between stress and academic performance. Creating spaces for collective meaning making, connection, and gathering can be critical in supporting minority community resilience on postsecondary campuses. This can include institutionally (faculty / staff) supported student groups (e.g. cultural and racial or ethnic community groups; LGBTQ2S+ spaces and organizing groups; physical spaces for Indigenous students, faculty and staff; peer mentorship opportunities and programming supporting unique needs of students with disabilities).
Additionally, it is critical that institutions promote visibility (authentically, and with voices of marginalized community members at the forefront) at the broader institutional level. Consider the topics covered in lectures, representation among high-profile speakers and panels, physical spaces, art, architecture, landscaping. Within student affairs, representation in programming offered (e.g. orientation programming) is a critical opportunity to demonstrate the degree to which students from marginalized communities see themselves, their identities, their cultures and values represented within the organizational fabric during transition into college and university.
Shifting Cultures: Broad Awareness
As learning institutions, we have a significant opportunity to increase knowledge related to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) among our student, faculty and staff populations, to the benefit of our wider communities. Recognizing limitations of curricular content related to colonization, EDI, and anti-oppression in the K-12 system, institutions have an opportunity to expand student awareness of systemic factors contributing to inequities at multiple levels within our society. As institutions seek to build and implement anti-oppression training programs, promising practices include:
Hiring curriculum developers and trainers who have lived experience and subject matter expertise and compensate them fairly;
Focusing on co-construction models, ensuring that students and employees with marginalized identities are actively involved with and driving the content of the training; and,
Training individuals in positions of influence first, to realize broader benefits of knowledge and skills within the organization (e.g. student leaders, administrative leaders).
Institutional Commitment
It is critical that institutions ensure EDI issues are identified as priorities at the highest levels of the organization. EDI and anti-oppression should be identified as core values of the organization, and key priorities across strategic planning frameworks. Additionally, anti-oppression rubrics or intentional review structures should be embedded within organizational policy review frameworks, ensuring that EDI and anti-oppression are top of mind as administrators review organizational policies (whether they be focused on grading, facilities, or employee recruitment and compensation).
Increasing Representation
Critical to the success of all the priorities and actions identified above involves increasing representation of marginalized communities who are under-represented within student, faculty and staff populations, and ensuring their active inclusion within the institutional fabric and at decision making tables. Increasing representation among underrepresented groups should be identified as a priority in faculty, staff, and senior administration recruitment and hiring processes. Additionally, expanding access and representation among students should be critical considerations in domestic and international recruitment strategies.
Across employee and student groups, institutions must focus on authentically building relationships with marginalized communities through their recruitment efforts. Investing back in marginalized communities through services, mentorship programs, participatory action research, and educational and learning opportunities grounded in articulated community needs can be effective strategies to increase authentic relationships with marginalized and underrepresented communities. Additionally, institutions must consider barriers resulting from systemic oppression within our broader societies preventing access, including significant socioeconomic disparities. Educational access and financial means might be significant factors at play for capable prospective students and employees. Building pathways to study and employment, with necessary financial supports, mentorship, education and credential upgrading, and access opportunities are critical to combatting broader oppressive structures at play that could influence underrepresentation within postsecondary institutions.
Conclusions
Student affairs practitioners and educators have become increasingly aware of student mental health and the impacts of mental health on learning. Additionally, conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion have become more salient in many institutions stemming from long overdue social movements and broader societal conversations. A core goal of my research was to demonstrate utilizing a large, empirical research design the impacts of marginalization on wellbeing and learning among postsecondary students in Canada. I hope these data, coupled with promising practices for action, spark ongoing investigation and action among educators in the postsecondary sector, ensuring we work against perpetuating the insidious oppressive structures within our broader societies. With intention and effort, we have the capacity as educators and institutions to become equity-promoting tools for the students and communities we serve, which has and will continue to be the motivating goal of this work.
Rick Ezekiel (he/him) is the Director of Equitable Learning, Health and Wellness at Centennial College (Toronto, Canada), and completed his PhD at The University of Toronto (OISE) in December 2020. At the centre of Rick’s professional and scholarly work is a core passion to enhance the role education can play in promoting equitable lifespan development outcomes for learners within our broader communities and society. Rick is a cisgender, queer man of European (settler) ancestry, respectfully and gratefully doing research and work within the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, in the Dish with One Spoon Treaty Region.
References
American College Health Association (2016). National College Health Assessment II: CanadianReference Group Executive Summary Spring 2016. Hanover, MD: American College Health Association.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299. doi:10.2307/1229039
Crenshaw, K. W. (2017). On intersectionality: Essential writings. The New Press.
Ezekiel, F. (In Press). Mental Health and Academic Performance in Postsecondary Education: Sociodemographic Risk Factors and Links to Childhood Adversity, PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
French, B. H., Lewis, J. A., Mosley, D. V., Adames, H. Y., Chavez-Dueñas, N. Y., Chen, G. A., & Neville, H. A. (2020). Toward a psychological framework of radical healing in communities of color. The Counseling Psychologist, 48(1), 14-46.
Jones, P. B. (2013). Adult mental health disorders and their age at onset. British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(54), 5–10. http://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.112.119164
Kirmayer, L. J., Dandeneau, S., Marshall, E., Phillips, M. K., & Williamson, K. J. (2011). Rethinking resilience from indigenous perspectives. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56(2), 84-91.
Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, Social Stress, and Mental Health in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Populations: Conceptual Issues and Research Evidence. Psychol Bull., 129(5), 674–697. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.micinf.2011.07.011.Innate
Owens, M., Stevenson, J., Norgate, R., & Hadwin, J. A. (2008). Processing efficiency theory in children: working memory as a mediator between trait anxiety and academic performance. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 21(4), 417–30. http://doi.org/10.1080/10615800701847823
Post-Secondary Student Mental Health: Guide to a Systemic Approach. (2013). Vancouver, BC.
Wexler, L. M., DiFluvio, G., & Burke, T. K. (2009). Resilience and marginalized youth: Making a case for personal and collective meaning-making as part of resilience research in public health. Social Science and Medicine, 69(4), 565–570. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.06.022
Yerkes, R., & Dodson, J. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459–482.
Copyright Acknowledgment
High-level research findings shared in this blog are produced pre-publication (with submission to peer-reviewed journals underway). Please seek written permission before reproducing these data or images (fezekiel1@gmail.com), and if referencing this work, in addition to this blog post, please reference my dissertation (Ezekiel, In Press)as the original source of these research findings.
The American College Health Association – National College Health Assessment II – Canadian Reference Group survey tool is copyrighted material by the American College Health Association (ACHA). The National College Health Assessment raw data referenced in this blog, were used in my original research with permission based on a formal request to the ACHA, who provided that data for the purposes of my dissertation research. The opinions, findings, and conclusions presented/reported in this post are those of the author, and are in no way meant to represent the corporate opinions, views, or policies of the ACHA. The ACHA does not warrant nor assume any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented in this article/presentation.
In response to the impact of COVID-19 on incoming students’ transition to Ryerson University, a dedicated cross-departmental project team was convened to create an online preparatory program. In just two months, while still performing their regular job functions in the new online environment, the Get Ryerson Ready team researched, developed, designed, and launched a robust, innovative, multi-disciplinary, and award-winning transition curriculum to support the success and well-being of the incoming class of 2020.
The Context
In April 2020, leadership in the Office of the Vice Provost, Students (OVPS)1 at Ryerson University met to discuss the development of summer bridging courses to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on the experience of incoming students. Recognizing the incomplete final semester for high school students and a fully online learning environment at Ryerson projected for the Fall 2020 term, a project team was created with staff from Student Life & Learning Support, Athletics & Recreation, and Student Wellbeing, with assistance from the Registrar’s Office, Student Affairs Storytelling, and Computing & Communication Services. In just two months, the team researched, developed, and launched a robust multi-disciplinary, holistic transition curriculum for the incoming class of 2020 and Get Ryerson Ready was launched. This team has since won Ryerson’s 2021 Julia Hanigsberg Make Your Mark Staff Award for Client Service in recognition of their extraordinary efforts to support student success!
The program’s objectives were to deliver programming that:
addressed knowledge and skills gaps;
connected new students to campus resources, community values and standards, staff, faculty members, and their peers;
created a sense of community and belonging;
familiarised new students with online platforms and tools they need to know as Ryerson students,
built students’ confidence in their ability to learn and engage online;
provided multiple methods of delivery and access to learning resources; and
was equitable and inclusive overall, addressing the specific transition needs of students from equity-deserving backgrounds.
What We Did
Get Ryerson Ready launched on July 3, 2020 and featured five key modules with intentionally designed curriculum that addressed the challenges potentially faced by incoming students:
Ryerson’s Learning Management System, Desire2Learn (D2L), was used as a host for a majority of Get Ryerson Ready programming. This provided participants with opportunities to interact with an interface and content that illustrated what they would experience with their university-level online courses.
The Get Ryerson Ready landing page in D2L.
Students were also encouraged to join and engage with peers, staff and faculty via online message boards, hosted on the PeopleGrove platform by the Tri-Mentoring Program (Ryerson’s peer-to-peer mentoring program).
A few of the groups offered through the online message boards on the PeopleGrove platform
View of the Study Ready module “What to Expect: University Academics” in D2L
The Get Ryerson Ready team considered every aspect of the program through an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) lens, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of Black-identified students. The Community Ready module specifically and intentionally focused on welcoming and supporting students from a variety of equity-deserving groups, including students who identify as: 2SLGTBQ+, Black, Filipinx, Indigenous, Latinx, Lusophone, Mature, and/or Muslim women, plus women in STEM and students living with a disability.
View of Community Ready module “What to Expect: A Student Experience” panel in D2L
As a way to encourage participation, virtual “badges” were distributed for the completion of asynchronous modules, attendance at events, and engagement with elements of online platforms (e.g. message boards). As the participants collected badges, they were entered into draws for prizes, including Amazon gift cards and four grand prizes of iPads.
The team also nimbly responded to problems such as:
creating content for a high-quality and engaging website to be used for recruiting purposes, before completing the design of the new program, which was accomplished with help from the communications and storytelling teams in Student Affairs and the Registrar’s Office;
manually uploading 13,003 incoming students’ profiles into D2L, even though they had not yet matriculated, which was done with the help of the Registrar’s Office and Computing & Communication Services;
using a variety of technologies in new and more in-depth ways in order for programming to be delivered online, which required a lot of quick self-instruction while simultaneously planning content.
Platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Instagram, YouTube, PeopleGrove, Bitbolide, Rise 360 and Articulate Storyline were used to run activities for both synchronous and asynchronous content, as well as for D2L course management and the badging system. Zoom and Google Meet were used for social gatherings, mini-lectures, tutorials, and drop-in hours. Wellness Ready hosted sessions on Instagram Live and YouTube. Interactive and engaging asynchronous lessons for Study Ready and Writing Ready used Articulate Storyline, and the Bitbolide platform was used for Math Ready lessons.
View of Writing Ready module “Runway to University Writing” Articulate module on D2L
View of Math Ready module using the BitBolide platform
It is worth noting that the Get Ryerson Ready team created this program while they all grappled with the personal and professional ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and diligently ensured that their day-to-day work also shifted to the new online environment.
What We Observed
Between July and September 2020, 13,003 students had access to the Get Ryerson Ready course shell on D2L, and 2,552 students (a 19.6% engagement rate) actively engaged with content presented through a series of synchronous and asynchronous delivery methods.
Given the limitations of our assessment platform at the time as well as the short amount of planning time to launch Get Ryerson Ready, it was not possible to get permission nor to create a process to include embedded data about incoming students from the Registrar’s Office in the pre- and post-surveys. Only two demographic questions were asked in an effort to keep the surveys short and encourage high completion rates. As such, we knew which faculties the participants came from as well as their entry point into Ryerson. The data indicates that participants represented an evenly distributed mix from all six faculties that offer undergraduate programs and, not surprisingly, the majority of participants came directly from high school.
By September 2020, Get Ryerson Ready:
introduced new students to the D2L platform months before their first classes began;
actively engaged participants with content for an average time of 24 minutes, 54 seconds;
awarded 3,806 badges for participation;
engaged faculty members from across the University through the mini-lecture programming, which in turn provided them with opportunities to practice their online lecturing skills before the academic year began;
helped our Admissions & Recruitment team illustrate Ryerson’s standards of care, innovation, and adaptability to almost 23,000 prospective students at a crucial time in a recruitment cycle under the unknown influence COVID-192.
What We Learned
Key overall findings from our pre- and post-surveys3 include:
The majority of students felt more prepared, more confident and clearer about their academic and community responsibilities as Ryerson students as a result of participating in Get Ryerson Ready.
As a result of participating inthe program, students reported an overall decrease in concern in areas including attendance of online lectures, comprehending course material, and accessing both student and academic support.
Over 50% of students surveyed raised concerns about being able to socialize with peers and connect with the Ryerson community even after participating in Get Ryerson Ready.
Students’ anecdotal feedback indicates that they found Get Ryerson Ready to be a helpful bridge into university and the fully online learning environment, allowing them to mentally prepare for their courses, socially connect with other incoming students, and learn about resources.
“I have never really felt engaged during remote learning – today I really appreciated having the time after class to reconvene and chat and socialize.”
“All the resources for the different subjects allowed me to review knowledge and be mentally prepared for my courses.”
“I loved how the course was structured. I found the different courses provided on D2L really helpful as well, especially the ones that detailed the different supports available to students.”
“The writing tips helped me get a better understanding of how to better write a university grade paper.”
“I want to personally thank you. It was both helpful to get ready and receive incentive for that. Good idea.”
More detailed findings from each of the five modules also proved to be helpful.
Community Ready
Events and activities focused on transition and academics (e.g. finding communities, student experience panels) gained more traction and had higher attendance numbers than social events (e.g. games nights, talent shows, and DIY activities). This is the opposite of what was observed when most orientation and transition offerings were in-person during pre-COVID times.
Students were highly engaged and participatory during the Q & A portions of events, often running two to three times longer than what was allotted.
Math Ready
Based on students’ anecdotal feedback, they found the instructional videos very easy to follow and they wanted more opportunities to practice than what was offered.
Study Ready
Students attended mini-lectures that did not necessarily correspond to their academic programs, expressed interest in and curiosity about lecture topics outside of their field of study, and asked about elective options.
After the mini-lectures, professors reported students reaching out, in response to invitations they made during their mini-lecture, with questions about courses and programs.
Wellness Ready
By focusing on the student experience and the other facets of well-being, including the connection between regular activity and academic performance, we welcomed more students to online classes, programs, and spaces offered by Athletics & Recreation.
Writing Ready
Kahoot quizzes following lectures and modules were valuable for encouraging student engagement and cementing learning, however, these were not necessarily valuable for assessment purposes.
While the percentage of correct responses to Kahoot quizzes indicates that learning outcomes were met generally, there were discrepancies between these outcomes and the aspects of writing that students continued to struggle with in their essay contest submissions.
Planning for 2021
Program planning for Get Ryerson Ready 2021 is underway. Consultation with key stakeholders in all Faculties aims to enhance programming for individualized needs and interests and to increase the overall engagement of students across academic programs. The assessment plan for 2021’s program will include a check-in with participants at the midpoint and end of their first academic year at Ryerson, designed to inform the impact of Get Ryerson Ready on student persistence and retention. Given that over 50% of respondents raised concerns about being able to socialize with peers and connect with the Ryerson community, there will be a research focus in the planning phase on supporting community engagement and connection in online environments.
Discussions with the team about the data pulled from a variety of sources (e.g. surveys, quiz scores, submitted assignments, D2L analytics, and observations) were rich and led to an abundance of recommendations for future iterations of Get Ryerson Ready. Ideas put forward for 2021 include, but aren’t limited to: increasing data collection functionality on existing platforms, adding asynchronous modules while reducing the length for more targeted learning outcomes, pre-recording fitness classes to increase reach and accessibility, and adding co-facilitators to synchronous content to further facilitate conversation and answer questions.
In Conclusion
The essence of this program was a quick pivot to ensure Ryerson University met the new urgent and emerging needs of our incoming students during a time of uncertainty in a fully online service and learning environment. Get Ryerson Ready was student-centred, learner-focused, research- and praxis-informed, responsive, and relevant. It responded effectively and creatively to the context of learning, well-being, and community building in a fully online environment, all within the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown in Toronto. We are proud of our award-winning accomplishments and excited to build on the successes of the program as we continue to improve how we meet the transitional needs of new students at Ryerson.
Endnotes
1 This included the Registrar, the Executive Director, Student Affairs, and the Director, Student Life & Learning Support.
2 Between late June and late July 2020, 22,834 prospective students opened the Admissions & Recruitment team’s emails promoting Get Ryerson Ready, which was an open rate more than 1.5 times higher than the higher education industry average (source: MailChimp).
3 811 students responded to the Get Ryerson Ready pre-survey and 668 responded to our post-survey. due to the limitations in the assessment platform, it is not possible to prove that those who filled out the pre- and post-surveys were the same participants.
Bios
Rachel Barreca (she/her), B.A., M.A., is a settler Canadian student affairs pro who currently works on the Dish With One Spoon treaty lands as the Manager, Strategic Initiatives in Ryerson Student Affairs. She has been supporting successful student transitions into higher education since 1994.
Kait Taylor-Asquini (she/her), B.A., M.A., is the Director, Student Life & Learning Support in Student Affairs at Ryerson. A member of the Ryerson community since 2004, she has experienced the growth and evolution of the student experience at Ryerson as both a student and staff member.
We know you are doing amazing work helping students achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals. The Supporting Student Success blog is looking for guest bloggers for 2021. There is simply no better time than the present to share how you are supporting student success with colleagues from around the world.
Blog posts range from 750-2000 words. Excellent posts begin by stating the problem, challenge, or opportunity. They then share what was done to address the problem, rise to the challenge, or seize on the opportunity. When possible, posts conclude with how the response was received. These are the data (numeric or narrative) that convey students’, staff or faculty members’ experience.
Pictures are worth a thousand words. We encourage guest bloggers to provide figures, tables, infographics, or other images that help tell the story.
Nearly 4000 student affairs and services and higher education staff and faculty follow the blog. Your post is an important point of connection and may lead to an international collaboration. Don’t delay; pitch your post today. We look forward to hearing from you!
When I was a kid, I dreamt of traveling the world. I remember friends from a youth organization (4-H) hosting an exchange student from Japan. I was in grade 4 and I wanted to learn all about this student’s life back home and how it compared to her experience in the US. When I was in high school, I begged my parents to become a host family. And then a year later, I begged them to be an exchange student myself. I was abroad with the American Field Service (AFS) as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange in Germany in 1990-1991, the year of Germany’s reunification. In a sentence, the experience changed my life.
I have always been curious about how the every day experience may differ in another context, in another country. Maybe you have this same curiosity. Do you find yourself wondering: How does higher education operate in China? What does student affairs work look like in the Philippines? How do higher education institutions support student success in Mexico?
If you have these questions, then I have the virtual voyage for you. Set sail, from the comfort of your own couch, and join me as we go around the globe to learn about pathways to student affairs and services careers. ACPA – College Student Educators International and IASAS (International Association of Student Affairs and Services) have partnered in offering this awesome “Around the Globe” webinar series. Register today for the event Tuesday, October 27 (10 am EDT / 2 pm GMT). https://iasas.global/webinars/
Developing tools to collect insights for program improvement is not an easy task. Learning how to conduct surveys and run focus groups that inform your work is a skill that is shaped and re-shaped by practice in the field. Here are five key insights I learned as a Student Affairs professional conducting assessment to inform professional development service delivery during a pandemic.
I began as the Coordinator for Professional Development Initiatives at the Canadian Association for Colleges and Universities Student Services (CACUSS) at the beginning of March 2020. One of the projects that fell under my portfolio was revisiting the 2016 Member Professional Development Survey conducted by Jennie Massey and Kyle D. Massey. As four years had gone by since the last assessment, CACUSS looked forward to revisiting the needs assessment to ensure that the association’s current and future programming reflects the needs of its members. Eager to shed light on the voices of Student Affairs professionals across Canada, we anticipated launching the survey in mid-May with focus groups running into mid-June.
Then the pandemic hit.
With many of our members finding their world of work and life shifting rapidly, CACUSS decided to momentarily pause its delivery of the member survey. CACUSS learned and grew as the entire world adjusted. The anticipated annual CACUSS Conference: “Learn, Unite, Act” led by colleges was cancelled, alongside upcoming in-person fall professional development opportunities. In place of the conference was the growth of CACUSS ON-Line. CACUSS extended its membership renewal deadline and whereas possibly make individual accommodations.
We recognized that acknowledging and documenting this change was more important than ever if we were to continue supporting the future of Student Affairs in Canada. From early June to the end of July, a national survey was released and nine focus groups were conducted with members on professional development. The focus groups supported the survey and supplemented the results with rich, descriptive dialogue that was aimed to:
Identify improvements on how we currently deliver professional development programming to CACUSS members
Determine the membership’s understanding of the CACUSS competencies in programming
Identify new programming for members
Here are five key insights that we learned along the way:
Adapt survey instruments to the changing times
While we had a strong foundation from the 2016 Member Professional Development Survey, we needed to adjust questions to capture the nuances of professional development in the here and now. The changes included additional questions such as members’ experiences using our new platform, community.cacuss.ca and questions related to the impact of COVID-19. Another large update to the survey was the new professional development competencies that CACUSS did not have in 2016. We were interested in knowing: Which professional development competencies did members recognize as a priority? Were there regional differences in what members identified as a priority?
2. Revisions, revisions, and revisions
Jennifer Hamilton, Executive Director of CACUSS, and I exchanged numerous calls and emails as we revisited and re-envisioned the survey and subsequently developed the focus group questions. The goal was to ensure the questions measured what we intended and that the survey presented all possible response options. The questions were grouped into three themes,
I) CACUSS’s professional development opportunities
II) Professional development outside of CACUSS
III) Existing and future gaps.
3. Survey and focus group instruments are growing and living documents
As one of my professors shared, there is no such thing as a perfect survey. Throughout the process, I learned how accurate that was; surveys grow with feedback. One memorable moment of learning was when Jeff Burrow, Manager of Assessment and Analysis at the University of Toronto, reached out to let me know that respondents were required to answer all questions in order to proceed through the survey. He suggested that making the questions optional would elicit more responses, although some would be incomplete. After sifting through the copious amount of data, this early advice was on point! A similar truth could be said of focus group questions. The purposeful placement of prompts resulted in participants sharing more in-depth experiences.
4. Creating community in a virtual focus group
Virtual focus groups offer a new set of opportunities and challenges that in-person focus groups do not.
First, facial cues and gestures made by focus group members are not as easily perceived in virtual calls, regardless of whether the camera is on or off. In a more massive virtual call, it becomes harder to know when someone will speak and yes, the awkward unmute at the same time will happen. Two strategies to work around this is to set ground rules early on as a friendly reminder to allow a person to finish their thought before contributing or use existing features such as the raise hand function in Zoom.
Second, virtual engagement calls on participants to provide more space and energy than in-person focus groups demand. Participants are calling in at their homes where they may be a caregiver, parent, or attending to other needs that require their attention. It is essential to remind yourself that participants are inviting you to their personal space, and it is important to understand and acknowledge that interruptions may happen. Your role is to facilitate a space that is warm and welcoming to members who may be meeting you for the very first time after exchanging several emails.
Internet meme created by Sarah Woodard, director of development for Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, Vermont, USA captures the many thoughts that happen during a Zoom call.
In the focus groups, I make the main question available in the chatbox after I have read it aloud, so that if a person needs to switch for a moment or recall the question asked, it is available in written format. Using prompts also helped members to provide and me to gather detailed and descriptive responses. I refer to Merriam and Tisdell’s guide (2015) in framing questions such as:
Tell me about a time when…
Give me an example of…
Tell me more about that…
What was it like for you when…
Always must introduce my handy dandy voice recorder at the beginning of the focus group
5. Connecting nationally offers great perspective and appreciation
Lastly, virtual focus groups offer an exceptional way of connecting with participants across geography. We had members calling in from coast-to-coast, morning and afternoon. To connect with so many people across geography and time zones is genuinely remarkable. Just be sure to include your time zone in emails!
Throughout this process, I enjoyed listening and learning from CACUSS members. It is a reward and privilege to be in a virtual room of thoughtful student affairs leaders. Transcribing and reviewing the transcript for themes on professional development served to reinforce the importance of connecting, especially during this time. Thank you to all the CACUSS members who were part of the focus group and survey process! While conducting surveys and focus groups using telecommunications is not a novel concept, it does bring new challenges during a pandemic. At the same time, now more than ever we need to employ thoughtful assessment instruments to inform our future work.
The author at her computer on a Zoom focus group call.
Most profound appreciation to Jennifer Hamilton and Jeff Burrow for your insights and feedback throughout this process, and to everyone for sharing your incredible experiences, learning, and vision for CACUSS’s future professional development programming.
Joanne Minh TrietLieu is the Coordinator of Professional Development Initiatives (Coordonnatrice des initiatives de perfectionnement professionnel) for the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (l’Association des services aux étudiants des universités et collèges du Canada).
References
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). San Francisco, California: John Wiley and Sons.
A couple of weeks ago I acknowledged that COVID-19 has made lemons of pretty much everyone’s summer conference plans. Yet, the silver lining is online conference sessions make for some tasty virtual Professional Development lemonade.
Maybe you are looking for a fresh perspective on promoting student success? One that is both fun AND informational. Tricia Seifert will detail a variety of games (Future Bound, Just Press Play, enrolled, Success Prints Crash Course® — to name just a few) in the keynote for the FREE INSAC event beginning, July 7 at 1 pm (PDT) / 4 pm (EDT). Sign up today.
Are you bummed your summer conference was canceled? Were you looking forward to sessions that inspire? Maybe you were stoked to share your great work with colleagues? Take that energy and go virtual to the Inland Northwest Student Affairs Colloquium. This FREE professional development series will take place throughout July and is accepting proposals until May 31.
I’m always looking for the lemonade when life gives me lemons. And let’s be honest, COVID-19 is a grove of lemon trees. With travel coming to a near halt, why not learn virtually from colleagues from the around the world? Did I mention that the final day to submit a proposal is May 31 — so don’t delay, submit today! https://lnkd.in/gMiDS-X
Few people have the funds (many higher education institutions cut travel budgets way before the pandemic) and/or the time (can we say child care and home responsibilities?) to travel, stay at a hotel, and pay conference registration for 3 days of professional development.
Virtual PD makes conference attendance more equitable on every level.
I’m super excited about the INSAC virtual event because I’m keynoting on July 7. The session, “Play, Fail, Learn, Play, Win!: Using Games to Promote College Success”, will focus on how games are a well-tested way to engage students. Rather than the staid lecture telling students what they need to know, games invite students to test ideas and strategy, reflect on choices, and make sense of their play. Game-based learning is experiential education at its finest. This is the course that 21st century higher education must chart if it wishes to remain relevant.
I’m also reprising my role as conference weaver. I love doing this as it pushes me to attend as many sessions as I can and then “weave” the strands of learning, challenges, and opportunities from the event into a single tapestry.
Although you may not have trekked out to eastern Washington pre-pandemic, there’s no reason not to go from the comfort of your own couch. Hope to see you there! Please feel free to share this post with your network. The more, the merrier. https://lnkd.in/gMiDS-X
The question of whether high school students transitioning to tertiary (higher/post-secondary) education are prepared for the digital learning environment of university is a multifactorial one. One popular point of discussion is that ‘digital natives’ are not as digitally literate as some educators assume they are. Another is the generation of students currently moving through the educational system encounter a great deal of variation in the digital skills gap among teachers, parents and administrators, as well as among schools. What we can surmise is the presence or lack of digital technology use in high schools will be most apparent when transitioning to tertiary education.
Students from regional and remote areas of Australia and low socioeconomic backgrounds face unique challenges in closing both levels of the divide. These challenges include:
Access: few retail outlets to purchase computers/devices with service or warranty plans and cost prohibitive data plans;
Connection: limited bandwidth and lack of IT person to troubleshoot connectivity problems at high schools;
Skills: Little to no influx of new high school teachers with digital skills;
Knowledge and Skills: Limited access and time for professional development on new technology for schools; and
Knowledge and Skills: Parents, teachers and administrators questioning the worth of technology use in classrooms.
To address the above challenges, we developed the LEAP-Links (Digital Literacy) program, designed to assist regional and remote low SES students to build the digital competencies needed to succeed in school and the transition to higher education. Digital Needs Assessment was undertaken to understand the perceived digital competency of students transitioning from high school into university and identify any gaps in key digital skills. We wanted to understand if the digital technologies students learnt in high school are transferable to those required at university.
Method
138 university students who graduated high school in NSW were invited to complete an online survey on their use of digital technologies for learning in high school and university. Eighty-one students completed the survey. We analysed data of 69 students, nine graduating from regional high schools and 60 from metro area high schools in New South Wales, Australia.
Key Findings
High School Preparation
When we asked students if their high school prepared them for the digital technology requirements of university, half agreed or strongly agreed, while the other half remained neutral or disagreed to strongly disagreed. This suggests that an equal number of students felt ill-prepared as prepared for using technology in university.
Digital Technology Use for Learning in High School versus University
In comparing students’ digital technology use for learning in high school versus university, the results show students use spreadsheets more than twice as often at university than in high school and use social media for learning 38 percent more often in university than in high school. Even more telling, a third of students never used spreadsheets in high school, whereas only 7 percent have yet to use spreadsheets for their university studies. Additionally, nearly 6 in 10 high school students report never having used digital referencing tools like Endnote in high school, whereas 66 percent of students use it weekly or monthly at university.
Figure 1. What digital technology did you use for learning in high school?Figure 2. What digital technology are you using for learning at university?
Recommendations for First Year University Students
Of the 54 open responses, 30 students recommend learning to use spreadsheets (Excel) before commencing university. The other notable recommendations were to learn how to use online collaboration tools (Google drive), referencing software, coding/programming and online research techniques such as effective searching of online databases.
Figure 3: What digital skills do you recommend before commencing university?
Our Response to the University Students’ Recommendations
We developed and delivered professional development workshops for secondary school teachers in three schools across three NSW regions (North Coast, Central West and Far West), accredited by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA). Materials developed for the workshops and online unit were completed in August 2017. Participating teachers were credited 7 hours for the program in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – 5.5hrs for face to face workshop time and 1.5hrs for the follow-on online unit.
Content developed for the teacher professional learning workshops included:
Addressing the shift in pedagogy for using technology as learning tools in the classroom
Applying Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) framework to integrate digital literacy skills with theory and practice
Immersive skill-building activities using Google Suite
Practical ways to teach key elements of digital citizenship
Digital citizenship refers to ensuring students understand how to stay safe online, while taking advantage of all the possibilities offered by the internet and digital technologies.
Expanding personal learning networks to discover new online teaching resources.
The online unit of work developed as part of the program included a series of reference guides to support teachers and students with ICT digital literacy skills in the following areas:
The majority of teachers strongly agreed that this PD provided: relevance; new content; career development; perceived value; and applicability. Teacher feedback indicated:
The majority of teachers strongly agreed that this PD provided: relevance; new content; career development; perceived value; and applicability. Teacher feedback indicated:
Students were engaged and motivated to use new digital tools
Digital learning was incorporated in more informal ways in classroom contexts, and this was well received by students (particularly as some students were noted to not have access to ICT tools at home)
Workshops were valuable for learning new and relevant digital skills
Follow up support and sessions with practical activities, as well as on-going resource sharing and local resource-use were flagged as recommended program improvements.
Teachers encouraged students (14-16 years) to conduct a collaborative unit of work using the digital tools students learnt in the curriculum utilising the following skills:
Acknowledge Sources
Avoid Plagiarism
Understand Copyright
Students designed a presentation of no more than two minutes for their class on their selected topic and named the source of images, videos, music from the Creative Commons repositories they have learned about. Of the 46 students who completed the unit of work:
89% reported increased confidence towards digital learning.
93% students reported increased interest in using online tools for educational purposes.
93% students reported increased understanding of the digital requirements of higher education.
93% students reported increased aspiration towards and preparedness for higher education.
Photograph taken during Globaloria class in 2013.
Challenges Remain
One of the most commonly mentioned challenge is the lack of reliable Internet, as a result of low bandwidth in regional and remote areas contributing to a growing gap in digital competencies between low socio-economic status (low SES) students and the rest of the general student population. School teachers provided feedback on having technology but often struggling with poor bandwidth and lack of digital skills amongst teachers and students. One of the teachers commented:
“Our internet speed is always a problem being where we are and so therefore students get a bit frustrated, as we know students do, if things are taking too long or timing out. It depends how many students we’re trying to get on at any one time, so that does impact on things.”So teachers would always probably prefer paper based and go that way, because of the lack of reliable internet and/or resources in the school.”
Access to technologyis an ongoing issue as mentioned by teachers:
“Some students have devices, other students don’t have devices, so that’s always a challenge if we’re trying to set things up. Then our old technology in terms of our fixed computers around the school, they age and so some are working and some are not. “
Distance is a major challenge for teachers from regional and remote regions. Some couldn’t attend professional development training programs because of the locations where they were held:
“[The] professional development [trainings] seems to be centred more around the larger regional areas. When I say regional, I mean like Newcastle, Armadale, those kind of places. So anywhere to travel for professional development was a minimum of around two hours to three hours to be able to attend. So we couldn’t attend a lot of the professional development because a lot of the time the funding wasn’t there to put you up overnight teachers aren’t – when they travel six hours.”
The digital divide is created by varying levels of accessibility and affordability of technology resources. Students from regional and remote areas face unique challenges in overcoming the digital divide, based on location and the compounding impact of low SES status towards accessing resources. Similarly, teachers in regional and remote areas face difficulty in accessing the much needed professional development opportunities to further enhance their digital literacy skills. This work demonstrates that a more inclusive approach is needed to understand and accommodate the reality of students’ entering skills, rather than rely on supposition, to assure student success for all.
Sonal Singh is Manager, Student Equity, Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology Sydney. She tweets @SonalSingh2 and can be reached at her email: sonal.singh@uts.edu.au
My rationale for wanting to go to University of Toronto for my doctoral work was to understand more about the research on postsecondary context. I was attending a conference in the summer prior to starting my studies and I presented in a session in which Tricia Seifert and Jeff Burrow were sharing recent findings from the Supporting Student Success study. I was able to connect with Tricia and several of the team members throughout the conference and I was fortunate to be invited to begin working on that study in the fall when I started at OISE. I credit Tricia with opening my world to student affairs and services. Prior to this work, I did not know that this was an area people researched nor did I know it was an area within which I could work. I connect this to the study in the sense that, not everyone knows about student affairs and services and what folks in this field do.
My doctoral research focused on understanding the experiences of graduate students with mental health challenges and examining the challenges they face and the supports they use. I used the 2016 Canadian Reference Group data from the National College Health Assessment to obtain an overall understanding of Canadian graduate students’ mental health. I then conducted semi-structured interviews with 38 doctoral students in Ontario who identified as having a mental health challenge or disability. Although the Supporting Student Success study was not the metaphorical “egg” to my dissertation research in the same way that Jacqueline Beaulieu described, I will detail three connections that I do see.
1. Defining “Success”
Seifert, Henry, and Peregrina-Kretz (2014) wrote an article titled “Beyond ‘Completion’: Student Success is a Process” and in it they highlight that degree completion is often considered the sole criteria for determining whether a student is successful. They draw attention to a need for a broader notion of what student success is and cite literature that refers to students’ academic goals and intentions as key pieces of what a definition of student success should have. Part of what I wanted to look at in my study was how mental health conditions impacted students’ performance and progress in their doctoral program.
I began by identifying the year of study and then the stage of program (coursework, comprehensive exam, proposal, dissertation). This was fairly straightforward. Next, I asked participants about the expected time-to-completion. This is where it started to get messy. Some participants referred to what the official timeline was from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, others referred to what their specific faculty identified, and others referred to what they personally expected for their time-to-completion. Questions about participants’ current year in their program and program length were asked to begin a conversation about whether participants were considered “on-track” to finish within the expected time frame. However, in the same way that Seifert et al. (2014) said that there is more to student success than completion of the credential, I learned that determining what would be considered “on-track” was also not straightforward. Participants’ timelines for completing different aspects of the degree varied and some were comfortable with being beyond the ‘expected’ time-to-completion because of their own expectations.
2. Shared Responsibility
One of the key things I learned while working on the Supporting Student Success study was that student success is the responsibility of everyone on campus: It is not the responsibility of student affairs and services professionals alone. There needs to be a broader campus culture that values and encourages collaboration across campus with the purpose of supporting student success. I connect this to my dissertation work because graduate students use support from a variety of sources throughout their experience. When I interviewed doctoral students, I found that many people play a part in supporting graduate students with mental health conditions. Participants sought informal academic and mental-health related support from peer networks and they also talked about a mental health culture within their departments where students are sharing their experiences of seeking mental health support. While peers can encourage others to seek support, they can also unfortunately deter others from seeking support if they had a negative experience. The findings that peers were primary sources of informal support was not surprising, particularly in light of this piece by Peregrina-Kretz, Seifert, Arnold, and Burrow (2018) that used data from the second phase of the Supporting Student Success study to identify peers as connectors, coaches and confidantes, co-constructors, and copycats.
In addition to peers, interview participants also reported that faculty supervisors were also a primary source of support. Of 36 participants, 22 disclosed their mental health challenges to their supervisor. I was reminded of presentations that the Supporting Student Success team did titled “Knowing me, Knowing you – It’s the best I can do” and “Do I know you? Faculty and student affairs and awareness and engagement with the ‘other’” and was prompted to think about the importance of ensuring that faculty are aware of the various mental-health related supports and how to refer students to those services.
Another way that I connect shared responsibility for student success to my dissertation work is by using findings related to the use of professional mental health support. In the NCHA, participants are asked if they had received mental health support from offices at their current college or university. About 45% of the graduate students with a mental health condition reported that they had. However, a limitation of this instrument is that it does not ask about use of off-campus support. In the interviews I conducted, I learned that 35 out of 38 participants reported accessing some form of professional mental health support during their doctoral studies: 13 used on-campus support, 14 used off-campus support, and 8 used both on- and off- campus support. This finding highlights the need for collaboration between on- and off-campus resources to support students’ mental health.
3. Survey Design
I joined the Supporting Student Success research team when we were starting Phase 3 of the project and developing a survey to send to faculty, student affairs professionals, and senior administrative leaders across Canada. During this time of survey development, I learned how important it is to take a close look at how questions are phrased to ensure that they are clear. Furthermore, I learned about decisions that are made when you develop a survey. After being involved in this survey development, I now examine survey instruments very closely and pay particular attention to how questions concerning graduate students are asked. Connecting this to my dissertation work, the National College Health Assessment could be revised in different ways to capture the graduate student context more effectively. For example, one question asks, “What is your year in school?” and response options are: 1st year undergraduate, 2nd year undergraduate, 3rd year undergraduate, 4th year undergraduate, 5th year or more undergraduate, Graduate or professional, Not seeking a degree, and other. Only one of these response options captures the graduate level and it does not allow for further categorized based on master’s versus doctoral level, or year of study at the graduate level (1st year doctoral versus 6th year doctoral).
I also want to draw your attention to how we ask questions about whether students identify as having a disability or mental health condition. In my dissertation, I examined participants’ responses across the three NCHA questions and found that a large number of respondents who responded affirmatively to “Have you ever been diagnosed with depression?” and/or “Within the last 12 months, have you been diagnosed or treated by a professional for any of the following mental health conditions?” did not identify as having a psychiatric condition. A total of 69% of the 975 participants who had been diagnosed with depression at some point did not identify as having a psychiatric condition. Similarly, of the 1,144 participants who identified as being diagnosed with or treated for a mental health condition in the past year, about 71% did not report having a psychiatric condition. Why might students be comfortable reporting their mental health condition on some questions but not others? What would happen if the question about having a psychiatric condition was not part of the disability demographic question? How are students defining disability?
Concluding Thoughts
The focus of student affairs research, particularly in the area of mental health, is focused primarily on undergraduate students. I therefore challenge you to consider how the needs of graduate students at your institution may differ from those of undergraduates and to reflect on the following questions:
How are you working together across the institution and beyond to support graduate students’ mental health specifically?
How are peers and faculty supervisors trained to support graduate students’ mental health at your institution?
In what ways are you collecting data about graduate students’ mental health?
How do the questions you pose in surveys reflect the nuances of graduate-level education (e.g. master’s versus doctoral level, year of study, academic requirements)?
Dr. Kathleen Clarke isa lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University. Follow her on Twitter @_KathleenClarke.
References
Peregrina-Kretz, D., Seifert, T., Arnold, C., & Burrow, J. (2018). Finding their way in post-secondary education: the power of peers as connectors, coaches, co-constructors and copycats. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(5), 1076-1090.
Seifert, T., Henry, J., & Peregrina-Kretz, D. (2014, July). Beyond ‘completion’: Student success is a process. SEM Quarterly, 2(2), 151–163. doi:10.1002/sem3.20042
supportingstudentsuccess.wordpress.com 