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Frailty in transition? Troubling the norms, boundaries and limitations of transition theory and practice
Keywords
Student transition; higher education; pedagogic frailty; concept mapping
Abstract
This article focuses on ‘transition’ and how it is understood within higher education. Drawing
on data from concept map-mediated interviews at two institutions, we examine the
conceptions of transition held by academic and professional staff, who work to support
students’ learning into and through higher education. We suggest that normative
understandings of transition often draw upon a grand-narrative that orchestrates and reiterates
a stereotypic understanding of students’ experiences. Often this narrative involves students’
interpellation into a field of discourse where the subject is constructed as both homogeneous
and in deficit: ill-prepared, lacking in independence, as vulnerable and in need of support.
However, this study suggests that beneath this discourse lies a more nuanced picture: one
where students’ experiences can be conceptualised as diverse and fluid. Moreover, we
employ the concept of pedagogic ‘frailty’ to expose the significance of the environments and
wider contexts in which students ‘transition’, and to explore the impact of systemic tensions
upon students’ experiences. This article further argues that future research should shift
discussions away from the deficits of students, and examine how we can make underlying
environmental and systemic challenges more explicit, in order to widen our understanding
and discussions of these constraints.
Introduction
This study examines the narratives and conceptions that underpin students’ transitions into
and through higher education. This area of theory and practice has developed huge global
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significance in recent years as institutions seek to widen access to higher education, to
promote retention and to foster a positive ‘student experience’, and a plethora of initiatives
have emerged to support and manage students’ transitions. However, despite the significance
of transition in informing policy, research, and practice, it remains largely under-theorised,
and underpinned by unquestioned and normative assumptions regarding what transition might
mean. Moreover, these unquestioned assumptions often reproduce, reiterate, and sustain a
paradigmatic grand-narrative of transition where the subject is constructed as in deficit: ill-
prepared, lacking in criticality and independence, and in need of support to manage this risky
experience.
In this study we use concept map-mediated interviews with academic and professional staff
in order to surface and to unravel staff conceptions of learning, unlearning and transition and
we seek to unsettle established and normative conceptions of transition to higher education.
We ask participants to consider what knowledge, skills and practices they perceive students
must let go of, or develop, in order to transition into and through university. Our data suggest
that staff draw heavily upon such traditional paradigmatic narratives of transition to inform
their discussions. However, a closer examination suggests that, as staff reflect further, a
stereotypic discourse is disrupted, as staff begin to reflect upon the irregularities and the
multiplicities of students’ experiences. Furthermore, staff reflections evince systemic and
environmental challenges that are fundamental to the debate around student transitions, and
that provoke a move away from the focus on individuals’ qualities, deficits and
vulnerabilities, towards an examination of the tensions, or ‘frailty’, at the heart of institutional
cultures and structures.
A grand-narrative of transition in research, policy and practice
In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard (1984) introduces the idea of
a grand narrative: a pervasive, embedded, cultural narrative which organises and totalises
knowledge and experience. The literature surrounding transition can be seen to reiterate a
grand-narrative that relies on a number of distinct themes. One pervasive theme that can be
identified within this narrative is transition as risk. ‘Transition’ is often depicted as a
problematic phase that must be ‘smoothed’, ‘bridged’, and made ‘successful’, with the help
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of staff and institutional initiatives. Settling quickly and smoothly is the ideal: for example,
Murtagh (2012, p. 31) identifies that ‘preparation for university and good induction practices
can help students to settle quickly and more effectively’. And similarly, Hultberg et al. write
that: ‘students have to become more focused and more goal-oriented…to make the transition
process as smooth as possible it is important to deal with these issues’ (2008, p. 49). Indeed,
making the transition process ‘as smooth as possible’ is often considered an uncontested goal
of institutions.
Often intertwined with this notion of risk is a theme within the narrative that identifies
students as in deficit. As we have seen, students are required to be more ‘focused’ and ‘goal-
orientated’, and are often depicted as poorly prepared for university life (Lowe and Cook,
2003; Murtagh 2012) and as needing additional support to adapt to their new environment
(Hughes and Smail, 2015). A trope that neatly symbolises this construct is of a ‘gap’ to be
‘bridged’, (for example Lowe & Cook, 2003; Briggs, Clark & Hall 2012; Tate & Swords,
2013). This deficit narrative also often evolves around supporting ‘aspirational’, or ‘non-
traditional’ students. For example: ‘Students today…come from different social and cultural
backgrounds, and have had different experiences of education. This puts new demands on the
transition process’ (Hultberg et al. 2008, p. 47). Similarly, learners from disadvantaged
backgrounds are described as lacking ‘sufficient cultural capital to make an easy intellectual
transition from school pupil to university student’ (Macfarlane, 2018, p. 1201). Personal
resilience is also a recurring theme within this discourse (Webster & Rivers, p. 2018):
students are depicted as requiring to develop the resilience and adaptability to help them to
navigate transition (e.g. Pope, Roper & Qualter, 2011; Holliman, Martin & Collie, 2018).
Certainly, these perspectives reflect the reality for some students, and also reflect the good
intentions of practitioners looking to foster students’ development, widen participation, and
promote an inclusive, supportive higher education environment. Nonetheless, such narratives
suggest a personal deficit in students who find transition difficult and who must adapt in
order to navigate institutional norms, practices and expectations.
The discourses surrounding transition also depict homogeneous, linear, journeys that students
undertake, and that involve discrete stages (induction; the ‘first year experience’). As a result,
much of the thinking which informs current practice can be considered as falling within a
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normative and unquestioned paradigm of transition which we argue may not fully
acknowledge the complexity, and multiplicity, of students’ lived realities. Despite the
pervasiveness of this perspective, there are, however, a number of notable exceptions to this
narrative. Quinn (2010) contests normative conceptions of success and failure and also linear
depictions of transition. She proposes a radical rethinking of the concept, suggesting: ‘we are
always lost in transition, not just in the sense of moving from one task or context to another,
but as a condition of our subjectivity’ (2010, p. 123). Similarly, Gale and Parker (2014, p.
734) argue that ‘research in the field needs to foreground students’ lived realities and to
broaden its theoretical and empirical base if students’ capabilities to navigate change are to be
fully understood and resourced’. And in their thought-provoking study that employs the
philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, and in particular concepts of rhizome, assemblage and
becoming to re-theorise transition, Taylor and Harris-Evans advocate ‘doing transition anew’
(2018, p. 1264) and refocusing attention on the lived specificities of students’ experiences (p.
1254). Likewise, Ecclestone asks us to question whether a ‘pedagogy of the self erodes
educational goals and practices in favour of being supported and managed through a
seamless, endless set of comfortable transitions’ (2007, p. 12). Our article thus seeks to build
on this growing shift towards ‘doing transition anew’, to explore both the complexity of
students’ experiences, and to look more closely at the environments within which that
learning takes place.
A fish out of water or polluted river?
In his work on educational transitions within schools Downes (2019, pp. 3-4) opines that:
Transition tends to focus on the child as foreground object, with some limited focus on transition issues pertaining to the school system…Put simply, transition concerns tend to treat the child as a fish out of water…rather than placing greater scrutiny on whether the background river is polluted…These background structural conditions are the primary issue, that becomes displaced into a pseudoquestion here of transition.
Here, Downes highlights the importance of attending to the wider context of the school
system and approaches to transition have become misguided: a ‘pseudoquestion’. Drawing on
staff conceptions of students’ transitions, this article also seeks to explore further those
background systemic and structural issues that impact upon students’ transitions within
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higher education, and that may have been subsumed by the widespread attention on the
individual student’s deficit and subsequent growth: ‘a pedagogy of the self’ (Ecclestone,
2007, p. 12). In order to do so we put to work a theoretical approach for understanding
university environments that has sought to understand the challenges that underpin teaching
and learning by focusing more closely on the structures and environments where teaching and
learning occurs. Kinchin and Winstone (2017, p. 6) argue that when institutional
environments experience a lack of explicit and shared values that contribute to an effective
regulative discourse (as described by Bernstein 2000), a disconnection between the practices
of the discipline with the pedagogy that underpins the discipline, or tensions between the
academic and decision-making bodies (locus of control) that regulate teaching, pedagogic
‘frailty’ may occur. The pedagogic frailty model considers how elements of a changing
higher education environment interact with one another, and the overarching concept of
pedagogic frailty is ‘built up of elements that often arise from stress that accompanies change
within the higher education environment’ (Kinchin & Winstone, 2017, p. 5). Frailty is a
‘condition of a system rather than of an individual within the system’ and thus ‘we need to
consider the landscape of the institution’ (Kinchin & Winstone, 2018, p. 6). This conception
of the ‘frailty’ of systems, or environments, is in marked contrast to the depiction of the
vulnerable individual. This article thus engages with both this framework and the work of
Downes to refocus attention to the wider landscape of students’ ‘transition’ experiences.
Unlearning, learning and transition
As part of this study we were also interested to explore how we might begin to conceptualise
how students both learn and unlearn in order to understand their development more fully. A
concept of unlearning can be seen to imbue the work of a number of key theorists. Land,
Rattray and Vivian highlight that there will be an inevitable period of unlearning for students
as they transition into and through higher education and acquire new ideas (2014, p. 212).
Similarly Turner and Tobell comment that ‘transition is a time of reconstruction, where the
learner negotiates which aspects of their previous learner identity to maintain and which
require transformation’ (2017, p. 714). Baxter-Magolda’s (1992, p. 73) exploration of
students’ knowing and reasoning depicts students as leaving behind a phase of ‘absolute
knowing’ and moving towards transitional and contextual understanding. Similarly, Piaget (p.
1953) discusses how the contradiction of ways of knowing allows us to adjust to account for
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new experiences through a process of ‘accommodation’. And in Spivak’s postcolonialist
writings, she asks what is it to learn, what is it to unlearn? (1992, p. 776). However, this term
has not been examined in detail within the transition literature. Thus both learning and
developing, as well as unlearning and letting go of previous skills, knowledge and
experiences, formed part of our interview question within the map-mediated interviews as we
sought to examine this idea further.
The research project
Context and participants
We were also keen to include a multiplicity of perspectives from across institutions. As a
result we chose to include participants from both academic and professional services
backgrounds that included academic staff, librarians and learning developers. It has been
noted that the views of professional staff, for example librarians and learning development
advisors, have been underrepresented within the educational research literature, despite these
staff members working to support students’ learning (Gravett & Winstone, 2018; Salisbury &
Peseta, 2018). Indeed, these staff have been described as working within an educational ‘third
space’ (for example, see Whitchurch, 2008) and have been shown to have an important
insight into students’ experiences within higher education (Gravett & Winstone, 2018). We
hoped that by including a range of voices we would be able to gain a more nuanced
understanding of the landscape of an institution in which students’ learning takes place. We
also wished to harness a diversity of perspectives by exploring the views of staff working in
contrasting institutions and thus we chose to conduct the research across two universities:
Universities A and B. We were interested to know what knowledge and skills staff perceive
students must let go of in order to transition into and through university, how staff
conceptualise students’ transitions and development, and how this might relate to pedagogic
frailty within institutions.
The research took place in two research-intensive UK higher education institutions. One
institution (institution B) has a diverse profile including a high intake of Black and Minority
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Ethnic (BAME) students, a high intake of students from state schools, and a higher than
average intake of students who are the first in their family to go into higher education. This is
unusual for a research-intensive university and would, we felt, make for an interesting
comparison to our other institution (institution A) whose student intake is more reflective of a
traditional research-led institution in lacking such a diverse profile of undergraduate students.
The research involved concept map-mediated interviewing of seven members of staff, by the
first author. The sample consisted of two males and five females. Participants were recruited
via email. They were selected according to their job roles, in order to include participants
who worked closely with students and to include participants from across disciplines and
academic and professional backgrounds. The members of staff included three academics and
four professional learning support staff members including librarians and learning
developers. Academic staff participants worked in a disciplines including Health Sciences,
Biomedical Sciences and Mechanical Engineering. All participants were asked prior to
coming to the interview to think generally about their experience of, and views on, students
transitions into and through higher education.
The concept map-mediated interviews
Concept map-mediated interviews (Kandiko & Kinchin, 2013) aim to enable participants to
reflect upon a question in order to surface beliefs and values. The concept map functions as a
dialogic learning tool to externalize participants’ personal understandings and perspectives
(Kandiko, Hay, & Weller, 2013). Concept map-mediated interviewing is unstructured and
may include a single question that can be followed by further prompts. In this study, the
interviewer began by asking the interviewee: ‘from your perspective what knowledge, skills
and practices do you perceive students must let go of, or develop, in order to transition into
and through university?’ The interviewer then wrote down concepts mentioned during the
interview onto post-it notes, employing follow up questions as required. After the participants
had shared their perspectives, the interviewer recounted the interview back to the participant
based on the post-it notes to see if they were in agreement with what had been noted so far.
Once the interviewee had provided 12 – 15 concept labels, the interviewer then asked the
interviewee about the relationships between concepts and invited the interviewee to organise
them on a piece of A3 paper. The questioning that follows from this stage would include
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prompts such as: ‘Where should this concept go?’ ‘Should there be a link here?’ ‘Is that the
most appropriate word to describe this link’, in order to interrogate the intended meaning and
maximise the explanatory power of the links in the map (Heron et al., 2018). After the
interviews were finished, the interviewer electronically drew the concept map using the
drawing tools in Microsoft PowerPoint and sent this to the participants to review. The
interviewees then considered whether the concept map was a suitable reflection of the
interview experience, and edited or amended any concepts or links. Once the interviewee
returned the agreed electronic concept map, it provided the data for analysis (see appendices).
Ethical issues
Institutional ethical approval was granted for this study. All participants also provided
informed consent for their participation. It was made clear that participants could withdraw at
any time, that the interviews would not be recorded, and that the only artefact from the
interview would be the concept maps that are agreed by the interviewer and interviewee.
Additionally, our results were also externally validated via a member check with participants
to ensure that they were in agreement with the findings.
Data analysis
In order to store and organise the concept maps collected from the interview process we used
NVivo 12. We then coded the maps inductively within NVivo using thematic analysis (Braun
& Clarke, 2006) due to its flexibility in inductive approaches to data. We employed iterative
and inductive processes to identify themes across all the data. All authors first met together to
review the seven concept maps in detail in order to allow familiarisation with the data, and to
identify and agree an initial list of themes. A further iterative process then involved applying
the final set of themes to the entire dataset within NVivo, refining where appropriate. Codes
were associated to NVivo nodes and data across the data set organised systematically
according to the codes we generated. Recurrent themes were identified across the nodes,
grouped together and reviewed together. Themes were identified based on their prevalence
within the concept maps. Some of the questions which guided our analysis were: what are the
variety of ways in which participants describe students’ learning and unlearning? What
repertoire of understandings are the staff drawing on? What tensions (if any) are visible
within the maps? We also considered themes which initially surfaced within the interviews
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and themes that arose as the conversations became more complex (themes which tend to be
situated at the outskirts of the maps). Findings from the interviews are presented below.
Findings and discussion
Students in deficit
The primary aim of this study was to gain insight into how academic members of staff and
professional services staff, who work with students, conceptualise students’ learning,
unlearning and transitions into and through higher education. Our findings suggest that across
the interviews there exist many shared conceptions. One shared conception clearly references
a normative, deficit paradigm of transition reflecting what is visible in the literature, policy
and practice. For example, a recurrent theme discussed by participants across both institutions
is the notion of students’ lack of independence; this is expressed powerfully by the recurrent
trope of ‘spoon-feeding’ employed by many of the interviewees. For example, in Figure 3,
students are described as ‘ill-prepared’, as expecting ‘spoon feeding’, as used to ‘awaiting
instructions’ and as having ‘suppressed curiosity’. Similarly academic staff member 2 (Figure
2) describes students as needing to unlearn ‘spoon-feeding approaches’ and as needing to
‘develop independence’. Library staff member 6 (Figure 6) explains transitions can be
‘problematized when students expect to be spoon-fed’ and academic staff member 1
describes students as needing support in order to become used to ‘less signposting’. The
spoon feeding metaphor, so pervasive in contemporary debates surrounding students’
learning (e.g. Smith, 2008; Hanna et al., 2014), can be seen to reiterate a discourse where
individuals are portrayed as having a personal deficit, and are even depicted as infants.
‘Grey’ mindsets
A related theme present within the maps is students’ changing epistemology of knowledge.
For example, learning development staff member 4 (Figure 4) describes how students need to
let go of the view that the teacher is the ‘font of knowledge’, unlearning that knowledge is
‘compartmentalised’, developing a ‘changing mindset’, ‘criticality’, and an understanding of
‘shades of grey’. Academic staff member 2 (Figure 2) also discusses how students learn ‘to
identify gaps in their knowledge’ and develop ‘criticality’. Students are described as needing
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to let go of the belief that there is a single correct answer (Figures 1, 2, 4 and 5) and that
‘listening to the teacher ensures success’ (Figure 4). Academic staff member 3 describes how
students unlearn ‘fixed ideas’ and undertake a ‘learning journey’ (Figure 3) and similarly in
Figure 1, academic staff member 1 depicts students as needing to unlearn expectations for
example that ‘learning takes time’, and argues that students need to ‘form their own
knowledge’ base requiring ‘creativity’. Library staff member 6 believes that students must
understand the role of ‘independent research’ and develop ‘information literacy’ skills despite
preferring ‘simplicity’ (Figure 6). Library staff member 7 also discusses how students must
develop ‘information literacy skills’ and a ‘deeper understanding of plagiarism and
referencing’ (Figure 7). These views reflect the work of Gamache (2002, 277) who argues
that students must develop ‘an alternative epistemological view’, and that this is ‘one that
enables them to see themselves as creators of ‘personal knowledge’, rather than as containers
to be “filled”’. However again this narrative draws on a repertoire of understandings that
depict students as experiencing a personal deficit.
Changing student-staff relations
Another theme that can be discerned from the interviews relates to changing staff-student
relations. For example, library staff member 5 (Figure 5) states that students must change
their view of the ‘lecturer/teacher/learning developer as expert’ and that the ‘role of the
student’ becomes redefined, a view reinforced by learning development staff member 4
(Figure 4). Library staff member 5 explores how students’ roles are redefined so that students
‘actively contribute’. Academic staff member 2 (Figure 2) discusses the changing language
students at University B must adopt, as they must learn to move from the use of ‘teacher’ to
‘lecturer’ and ‘Miss’ to first names. Interestingly this issue of language was raised by a
participant working at institution B, and this lack of understanding of university cultural and
linguistic norms could perhaps be influenced by the increased number of students who were
first to attend university in their family attending this university. Again students must move
beyond the idea of ‘teacher as expert’, and as students develop more independent help-
seeking approaches staff-student relations are impacted (Figure 2). Students are described as
needing to recognise the value of support staff (Figure 6; Figure 7) something which may be
particularly difficult for students from international backgrounds (Figure 4). As a result,
many of these viewpoints can be seen to concur with a traditional paradigm of homogeneous
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and deficit transition experiences: foregrounding the individual student, her/his gaps in skills
or knowledge, and the need for her/him to adapt to a more challenging university
environment.
A tension between the system and our values
The maps also portray a more nuanced understanding of the environments and wider contexts
in which students ‘transition’. Many of the interviewees, across both institutions, consider the
impact of non-human agents, and identify systemic, financial and environmental tensions as
key contributory factors to transition difficulties. For example, library staff member 5
identifies the tension between traditional lecture theatres and buildings designed for
transmission approaches and the institution’s espoused values (Figure 5). Here this
participant articulates that this tension may cause real problems for students’ transitions as
they experience a disconnect between the visible symbols of pedagogy and the purported
values of independence and student-centred learning. A similar idea recurs in Figure 3 where
academic staff member 3’s map centres on a powerful and memorable statement: that there is
a ‘tension between the system and our values’. Here academic staff member 3 examines key
problems with curriculum design: namely the modular structures of degree programmes,
identifying that if learning is not transferred across modules then students’ growth may be
inhibited. This is also noted by academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) who describes the
‘constraints of a modular structure’.
The participants also reflected on challenges to transition caused by the impact of a neoliberal
higher education environment. Academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) openly states the
existence of ‘a customer mentality in tension with staff perspectives’ and describes the
university’s ‘idealised version of a student’ (which may be problematic). Academic staff
member 3 (Figure 3) identifies the problems when ‘academics feel the need to provide
information’ and when they know that students will ‘question failure / poor grades’. Library
staff member 5 (Figure 5) also indicates the impact of a neoliberal context: suggesting that
values of independence and criticality may conflict with a ‘results orientated culture’, and
with established notions surrounding ‘employability’ and the ‘route to achievement’. Other
wider systemic and environmental factors considered within the maps, include a culture of
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‘increasing student anxiety’ (Figure 4), which may ‘have multiple causes’, but which may
encourage ‘over-reliance on the teacher’ and ‘over-checking of work’. A growing trend of
commuter students was highlighted by staff at University B (Figure 2) and described as
potentially experiencing additional challenges transitioning into and through higher
education.
The participants offer a myriad of broader reasons for tensions and challenges within
students’ transitions including university facilities and buildings, curriculum design, and a
wider backdrop of neoliberalism, increased student anxiety and changing patterns of student
accommodation and lifestyle. This scrutiny of the wider context - that may operate in tension
with an institution’s underlying values - may indicate the occurrence of pedagogic frailty
within the system. Notably, by exposing the importance of the non-human: spaces, buildings,
curricula, the participants offer a critique to a humanist conception of education which has
been shown to underpin much educational thought, research and practice (Gourlay, 2015, p.
407), which places the ‘free-floating human at the centre’. Crucially, by redirecting our focus
to the wider landscape of students’ experiences, these perspectives offer a counterview to the
problematic nature of transitions being attributed to individual struggles, weaknesses or
deficits and instead raise questions about the tension between structural and cultural aspects
of higher education and our expectations of students within these contexts.
Disruptions and multiplicities
The interviews exposed interesting general contrasts between institutions. For example, at
University B, an institution which has a diverse profile of students, the impact of an increase
in commuter students upon transitions was noted. However, at University A an
acknowledgement of the particular needs of ‘traditional students’ was explored (Figure 5).
Further, the maps reflected a few notable general differences between individual participant
perspectives: for example it is not entirely surprising that the librarians commented
particularly on the role of research skills development and of the library, as a result no doubt
of their closer connection to these spaces and areas of work. In contrast, the staff members
focused on the problems of modularised curricula as curriculum design and assessment would
likely form more of a central aspect of their role.
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However, what is of greater interest is that the maps also disrupt overarching patterns and
perspectives by offering a number of alternative, divergent, conceptions. For example,
transitions are described as ‘ongoing’ by academic staff member 1 (Figure 1), as ‘not linear’
and as requiring the development of ‘an amorphous mass of knowledge’. This portrayal
differs markedly from notions of transition as linear journeys with discrete milestones (e.g.
the first year) and depicts learning and unlearning as messy, indeterminate, and unstructured.
Students are also articulated as ‘having different experiences’ during transitions (Figure 4).
While the data depicts recurrent negative constructions of students, crucially, here students’
strengths are celebrated: with some students ‘understanding university’, being ‘adept at
accessing support’, and being ‘very good at accepting difficulties and stress’ (Figure 4).
Academic staff member 1 (Figure 1) describes transitions as being ‘not the same for all
students’ and library staff member 6 (Figure 6) explains that transitions recur throughout the
degree, suggesting the notion that learning and unlearning is ongoing and fluid.
Some of the participants also deviate from a normative paradigm of heterogeneous
experiences, by their inclusion of discussions surrounding unusual differences between
particular groups of students. For example, library staff member 7 (Figure 7) describes
‘differences across cohorts’ as well as ‘disciplinary differences’. Furthermore, this librarian
particularly describes transitions as being more difficult for students who already have
degrees such as medics as these students may be over confident in their abilities, providing an
interesting, counterintuitive, perspective. Similarly, library staff member 5 (Figure 5)
explains her view that for students who do have traditional expectations of University on
arrival, transitions may be made difficult if these expectations of higher education are ‘old-
fashioned’ and if these students are then confronted with a busy and modern environment (for
example where the library is no longer quiet). This is an interesting viewpoint that deviates
entirely from the more frequent description of the advantages of cultural capital and
knowledge of the university sector that ‘traditional’ students bring with them as these
students enter higher education (e.g. Meuleman et al., 2015). Such divergences offer
interesting insight into the individuality and multiplicity of different students’ experiences
and deviate from paradigmatic descriptions of ‘typical’ student journeys.
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Conclusions
Conceptions drawing upon a repertoire of understandings that foreground students
deficiencies, and that present students as needing to adapt to university environments, can be
clearly discerned across the data and reflect the themes found in the literature. Indeed, we
have argued that within the literature, a pervasive narrative exists that widely influences
current understandings of students’ transition. This deficit discourse is problematic for a
number of reasons. Viewing transitions in this way is limiting for both staff and students, and
discourse has been shown to be powerful: for example, theorists such as Foucault (1991;
1998) and Butler (1993) have examined the role of language and discourse in the making an
unmaking of intelligible subjects, and in creating an epistemic reality. Both these theorists
have shown how interconnected is the relationship between language and subject formation:
language forms subjects and who or what is intelligible, and it is imbued with a power that
‘orchestrates delimits and sustains’ (Butler, 1993, p. xvii). Likewise Law and Urry (2004, p.
404) argue: ‘social science is in some measure involved in the creation of the real’.
Furthermore, a limiting conception of students’ experiences means that policy and practice
may not support students’ development effectively, as Law and Urry suggest: ‘if social
science is to interfere in the realities of that world, then it needs tools for understanding and
practising the complex and the elusive…and for ‘understanding non-linear relationships’
(ibid.).
However we have argued that in our study, the participants’ perspectives do deviate from this
narrative to consider more fluid and more complex notions of transition, learning and
unlearning. Students’ experiences are depicted as heterogeneous, unstructured and diverse.
Crucially, the participants also explore the ruptures, tensions, and non-human influences that
underpin students’ experiences within the wider systems and pedagogical landscapes of
institutions. These include a wide range of factors, for example institutional buildings and
study spaces, the problems of a modular curriculum, and a neoliberalist context. Tensions
within these landscapes can be viewed as a signifier of pedagogic frailty within the system, as
opposed to an individual vulnerability or deficit. Frailty may occur where an individual’s
views conflict with other views in the institution or where the values espoused within
institutions jostle uncomfortably with environmental or systemic constraints. Of course, there
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are some limitations to our study. Concept mapping is a collaborative interview process
where the concept map is co-constructed between interviewer and interviewee (Heron,
Kinchin and Medland, 2018) and this is a bias that needs to be acknowledged
openly. Additionally, our research is one snapshot and arguably small in empirical scope.
However, our research has produced data that is both conceptually and theoretically
generative. Moving forward, there is a need for further research to explore new ways of
theorising and doing transition and to continue to expand research which shifts discussions
away from the vulnerabilities and deficits of students. Rather, future work might consider
how we can remove stigma from descriptions of processes of unlearning and transformation
and also celebrate the value of what students bring. Crucially it may also be worthwhile
considering how institutions can offer students more guidance about learning approaches and
expectations within higher education. Further, it may wish to examine how we can accept the
multiplicity and singularity of transitions, and how we can make underlying environmental
and systemic challenges more explicit, in order to widen our understanding and discussions
of these constraints.
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18
Appendices
Figure 1 Interview with academic staff member 1 at University A
19
EXPECTATIONS OF PREVIOUS INSTITUTIONS
STUDENTS’ TRANSITIONS
require students to unlearn
NOT LINEAR(AMORPHOUS MASS OF
KNOWLEDGE)LEARNING TAKES TIME
are
ONGOING
FORM THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE-BASE
LESS SIGNPOSTING
SUPPORT AT THE RIGHT TIMES
PERSONAL TUTOR SUPPORT
CREATIVITY
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES
MORE GUIDANCE ABOUT LEARNING APPROACHES
AND EXPECTATIONS
and require
to explore further and to
need students to understand that
CUSTOMER MENTALITY IN TENSION WITH STAFF
PERSPECTIVE
can expose a
includingto become
used to
IDEALISED VERSION OF A STUDENT
SIZE OF COHORTNO SINGLE RIGHT ANSWER
CONSTRAINTS OF A MODULAR
STRUCTURE
NOT THE SAME FOR ALL STUDENTS
to get used to a larger
involve an
and that there is
are
moving beyond
made difficult by
problematised by
fosteringwith
although this is
not for all
including that
could be helped by
supported by
developedby
could be assisted with
although this can be complex within
and will be supported
with
and
Figure 2 Interview with academic staff member 2 at University B
20
INDEPENDENCE
STUDENTS’ TRANSITIONS
require students to develop
SPOON-FEEDING APPROACHES
LANGUAGE: e.g. TEACHER TO
LECTURER,’MISS’ TO STAFF NAMES
require unlearning
of
ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS
HELP-SEEKING APPROACHES
LIFE EXPERIENCE / A GAP YEAR
STAFF-STUDENT RELATIONS
CRITICALITY
TEACHER AS EXPERT
IDENTIFY GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE
TIME-MANAGEMENT
ROTE / SURFACE LEARNING
CLEAR / SINGLE ANSWERS
and appropriate
requires
developing
can be more challenging for
knowing how to leads to more
appropriate
made difficult without
improved by the maturity
of
no longer
just
COMMUTER STUDENTS
reflected in
require
THROUGHOUT H.E. e.g. THIRD YEAR
can be more challenging
being self-directed to
can be fostered by
which exacerbates
moving beyond
expecting
no longer viewing
altering
challenged by a lack of
which impacts upon
andand
moving beyond the idea of
Figure 3 Interview with academic staff member 3 at University A
21
STUDENTS MAY BE
ILL-PREPARED
DEPENDENCY
LEARNING JOURNEY
CURIOSITYINCREASED
FEEDBACK AT COLLEGE
LEVEL
STUDENTS’ SUCCESSFUL TRANSITIONS
VALUES CHANGE AND
GROW
FIXED IDEAS
STUDENTS ARE TECH SAVVY
AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS ‘SPOON-
FEEDING’
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
requires students
to unlearn
require students to undertake a
and may expect
are made difficult as
butwhere they may
be used to
and do not recognise
and have suppressed
their
as they may be used to
TENSION BETWEEN SYSTEM AND
VALUES
SELF-MANAGEMENTEMBRACE
FAILURE
EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
EXCELLENCE EASILY
requires students
to no longer
and
require
and students unlearn
PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS
SURREY LEARN
IMMEDIATE INFORMATION
STUDENTS WHO EXPECT TO BE
TAUGHT TO THE TEST
LEARNING IS NOT TRANSFERRED
ACROSS MODULESMODULAR
CURRICULUM
SKILL REQUIRED FOR PRACTICE
ACADEMICS FEEL THE NEED TO
PROVIDEINFORMATION
STUDENTS QUESTION FAILURE
/ POOR GRADES
and to
although this is a
key
UNIVERSITY IS HARD WORK
although there is a
as they may be used to
which may lead to
where
but
where students
develop their
promoting
and may be used to
where growth is inhibited by
a
andwhere growth is inhibited by
leading them to expect
in whichfostering
although
they may be reluctant to use
means that
Figure 4 Interview with Learning Development staff member 4 at University A
22
ACCEPTING DIFFICULTIES
/STRESS
ACADEMIC PRACTICES e.g. REFERENCING
MULTIPLE CAUSES
STUDENT TRANSITIONS
EXPERIENCING CHALLENGES OR
FAILURE IN TERMS OF GRADES
ASSESSMENT FOCUSED
ACCESS COURSES
are diverse may require unlearning of
CHANGING MINDSET/CRITICALITY
‘SHADES OF GREY’
OVER-CHECKING OF WORK
LISTENING TO THE TEACHER ENSURES
SUCCESS
INCREASING STUDENT ANXIETY
KNOWLEDGE IS COMPARTMENTALISED
and develops
OVER-RELIANCE ON THE TEACHER
moving beyond being
STUDENTS FROM INTERNATIONALBACKGROUNDS
TEACHER AS FONT OF
KNOWLEDGE
ONE CORRECT ANSWER
STUDENTS HAVE DIFFERENT
EXPERIENCES
ADEPT AT ACCESSING SUPPORT
SOME STUDENTS
UNDERSTAND UNIVERSITY
particularly for students
on
involve letting go of the idea that there
is
and
and
leading to a better
understanding of
require unlearning that
and
and students can be very good at
students can be
and
unlearning the belief that
require unlearning that
may be influenced by
which may encourage
this may particularly be true
for unlearning the belief that
this may lead to
which may have moving
beyond
and
and
promotes
meaning that leads to
and
requires
requires
23
Figure 5 Interview with Librarian 5 at University A
THE ROLE OF A STUDENT
STUDENT TRANSITIONS
DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES CULTURAL
ATTITUDES
ALWAYS A RIGHT ANSWER
TEACHERS ARE OFTEN NOT ABLE TO
GIVE DEFINITIVE ANSWERS
TRADITIONAL BUILDINGS /
LECTURE THEATRES
OLD-FASHIONED EXPECTATIONS
OF HE
HARDER FOR ‘TRADITIONAL’
STUDENTS WHO MAY HAVE ‘TRADITIONAL’
EXPECTATIONS
‘unlearn’ that there is
LECTURER/ TEACHER / LEARNING
DEVELOPER AS EXPERT
require a change in
and the redefining of the
STUDENTS ACTIVELY
CONTRIBUTE
ROUTE TO ACHIEVEMENT
RESULTS ORIENTATED
CULTURE
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS
CAN GO WRONG
SCHOOL / COLLEGE EXPECTATIONS
EMPLOYABILITY
THE LIBRARY IS QUIET
ENVIRONMENT MAY BE IN
TENSION WITH VALUES
and that
changing their view
of the
as a result
of
changes are problematized
when
not the same experience for
all students and also there are
may be problematized when students experience a disconnect
between
may be perpetuated by
meaning that it may be
such as
and the development of
where
which impacts
on
unlearning their view
of the
rethinking what is
although skills development
which may come from
which may conflict with a
and actively develop
problematisedby a
which may have been
developed by
meaning that successful transitions
meaning that
Figure 6 Interview with Librarian 6 at University B
24
RECOGNISE THE VALUE OF SUPPORT
STAFF
STUDENT TRANSITIONS
UNHELPFUL INFORMATION
SEARCHING HABITSINDEPENDENT
RESEARCHSPOON-FED’
INFORMATION LITERACY MAY NOT
BE TAUGHT AT SCHOOL/COLLEGE
NOTICEABLE DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES
STUDENTS PREFER
SIMPLICITY
can be problematized when students expect to be
require an understanding of the
role of
JUST USE LECTURE
NOTES
LIBRARY AS JUST A STUDY SPACE
READING IS PRE-PROVIDED
PRO-ACTIVE OUTREACH INIITIATIVES
THROUGHOUT DEGREE
LIBRARY COLLECTIONS
ARE UNDERUSED
difficultif students expect to
be
problematisedwhen
require students to ‘unlearn’
involve
and because
made more difficult when students and
staff fail to
problematisedwhen
this may be
becausealthough this may be
because some lecturers are happy for the students to
requiring staff to be
and students and staff to
can lead students to view the
may mean that students view the
and the unlearning of the
ensuring others
encouraging others to think beyond the
recur
25
Figure 7 Interview with Librarian 7 at University B
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF
PLAGIARISM AND REFERENCING
STUDENT TRANSITIONS
STUDENTS CAN BE OVER
CONFIDENTINFORMATON
LITERACY SKILLSINFORMATION IS
EASILY ACCESSIBLE VIA
A PROFESSIONAL WITHIN THEIR
DISCIPLINE
DIFFERENCES ACROSS COHORTS
VALUE OF STAFF SUPPORT
USE TECHNOLOGY APPROPRIATELY AND
PROFESSIONALLY
require students to develop
and a
DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES
STUDENTS MAY BE DISENGAGED WITH TEACHING
leading to
can be problematized
when
may be problematized when students
do not recognise the
and may not recognise
the
meaning that
students learn to
be
involve learning how to
may mean reluctance to
develop
‘unlearn’ that
which contributes to students
knowing how to
how to
development is difficult
when
STUDENTS WHO ALREADY HAVE DEGREES e.g.
MEDICS
for example
meaning that
although there are
noticeable
and
that impact upon
whether
that influence whether
26