Lecturer 170

The Lecturer theme reflected utterances which students related to members of academic staff whom they had interacted with during their studies. Typically this

person or persons referred to was the lecturer who was teaching them at the time or the marker of their summative work. Therefore the term lecturer describes all people who the student has come into contact with in such instances. In this regard the lecturer is referred to as the person responsible for giving feedback to the students in either written or oral formats. This theme represented in relation to other themes a moderate amount of utterances and as such perhaps reflects the relatively low importance the students interviewed attached to the lecturer during their studies. Such an interpretation can be explained by the sub themes in this theme. In the Lecturer sub-theme some students discussed how their lecturers could be helpful and others not so much:

Denise “Like the way they said that as a third year now as if it was something that I should know and that like why am I even asking in the first place. That really annoyed me and then I was just like well fine, whatever, I will do it myself then”.

Ellen articulated how she might feel if she was unable to see her lecturer:

Researcher “if that was not an option how do you think you would feel?”

Ellen “I’d just probably, the feedback, if I don’t understand it and you can’t speak to someone, I’d end up, I’d just leave it cos I would not have a clue how to improve it and just carry on with what I am doing”.

Researcher “Do you think that would affect your performance?

Ellen “Yeah, definitely. I think it would either stay at the level it is or drop”.

Denise appears to be suggesting that her perception of the lecturer has been negatively affected due to the apparent lack of help on offer from the lecturer. Denise’s experience could be interpreted as a realisation that she was in fact on her own in this particular situation. However her behavioural response of ‘I will do it myself’ suggests that even though her request for help was not suitably met, she was still able to regulate her reaction in a positive manner as she planned to attempt to overcome the situation herself. It is apparent here that some form of autonomy was developing within her reaction. Ellen reflected how important she finds utilising the lecturer and when asked how she would feel if that was not available to her she suggested that her behavioural response would be to continue in the same manner as she did prior to receiving the feedback as she would be unable to understand its contents and does not have the opportunity to seek clarification from the lecturer. In this situation Ellen highlights the benefits of an interaction with a lecturer to clarify her understanding of the feedback. If this was not available it appears then Ellen would be unable to process the feedback and the result would be a continuation of similar performance thus suggesting the feedback in this case would not produce the lecturers intended outcome of student improvement. It is interesting here that Ellen has been able to so eloquently articulate the concerns she has regarding the potential issues if the lecturer’s help was not present.

A further sub theme in this theme was labelledStaff perception. Thisrelated to how students viewed their lecturers’ attitude towards them and how they were directly concerned with the lecturers’ perception of them:

Denise “When I got the grade back from the 2:1, the next assignment was the qualitative one which the lecturers were a bit more helpful on because they knew that it was, with it being a research methods one, that it was going to be a lot

more confusing and it was, I think we had to do where you had to record and then do the transcript and stuff, they were a bit more helpful. One of them did voice the same thing as the first lecturer but in a lot, in a way that you know you can come and ask for help but I can’t sit and actually you know go through your stuff and I said well yeah that’s totally fine I just need somebody, for me, I just need someone to tell me

that I amright, otherwise I have a lot of just doubts thinking

well this isn’t right. So all I wanted from the other lecturer, just a simple yes or no.”

Denise’s overwhelming thoughts here suggest that she struggles with academic confidence. It appears that for Denise to succeed she needs to be told that she is right or wrong at certain junctions of her assessment journey (prior to submission). Due to this desire for verification Denise’s perception of lecturers is affected. For example if a lecturer helps Denise and provides verification, her perception of that lecturer is positive. Joel explained how he feels that the lecturer should have expectations of the students:

Researcher “Is there expectation from the teaching staff do you think, for you to do well?

Joel “Yeah and there should be. Cos if there wasn’t an expectation you know you’d feel like oh me tutor’s not even that bothered if I do well or not.”

Joel’s perception of the lecturer appears to centre upon a desire to ensure that the lecturer demonstrates some form of expectation of Joel. In this regard his perception of the lecturer is positive if they appear to overtly demonstrate an expectation of him. Joel suggests that if the expectation is not there from the lecturer then he feels they are perhaps not concerned with how he is doing. Both

Denise and Jordan seem to require external verification in order to feel like they are progressing in their learning which poses an interesting conundrum for the lecturer and suggests a further sub layer of the lecturer- student relationship. It appears that the lecturer providing feedback on the work submitted is not fulfilling enough for these students, rather they need to know that the lecturer is concerned for them and has expectations of them personally.

The final sub themes within this theme, related to relationships with lecturers and independent learning. In particular independent learning highlighted how dependent some students were upon the help they received from the lecturer:

Sunita “I think rather than doing the whole feedback I’d rather have them give me like a class before we hand it in to be like this is what I am looking for. Cos like obviously yeah

we are in the third year andstuff they can’t feed us the work

and write it for us but if we have more of an idea of where we are going or where they want us to be at it will help us. Cos also then it will reflect on the teacher cos if we are all doing well clearly the teacher is doing something right.”

Sunita appears to be demonstrating similar viewpoints to Denise and Jordan in that they all require verification at stages in their learning. On the surface this suggests that the level of autonomy is low within these students. I do not think this is inherently a major issue but rather it suggests that at times these students have struggled to grow accustomed to the dynamics of higher education. It appears for these students the lecturer is tasked with reassuring the students of their ability and progress and the student is dependent upon this verification in order to move to the next stage in their learning. In this respect for the student to utilise the feedback they are receiving it seems that they are suggesting that the lecturer also needs to demonstrate expectations alongside verification of achievement. It is perhaps prudent here to suggest that the dynamic of the lecturer/student relationship therefore needs to be shifted from instructional (that is lecture delivery

and marking of assessment) to instructional/scaffolded learning environment (that is lecture delivery alongside structured feedback at junctions along the assessment journey). Such an approach seems congruent with that of Sadler (1989) in that these students, if sufficiently nurtured in the early years of university would develop the necessary autonomy to not require such verification in the final year as the students reported here seem to need.

The lecturer theme has identified some interesting dynamics which seem to exist within the students interviewed. The students appear to have differing perceptions of the lecturers; some find their lecturers helpful whilst some do not. It is also suggested that some students need their lecturer for support and others do not. What was clearly apparent is that some students actively seek verification of their achievement from the lecturer and require this in order to progress in their learning. This does not appear all that surprising; after all this is what we all do when we are producing a piece of work. We want to check that it’s ok before we carry on. This does seem to be a sensible and mature way of producing any written work. I have followed a very similar pattern myself whilst writing this thesis. However what some of the students have alluded to is that the level of help they receive does appear to affect the way they subsequently perceive and interact with their lecturers.