Introduction
I would be lying if I didn’t say this was the part of the project (aside from the presentation) I was the most nervous about. It’s funny really how you can spend your entire day-to-day job delivering workshops, teaching materials and direct support, but as soon as you are taken out of your routine, your comfort area and role, the social dynamic changes. I found myself thinking on a day-to-day basis, what if the questions aren’t good enough? What if no one turns up? What if they think my ideas are terrible and out of touch? What if I am the problem? What if they tell me I am a terrible technician – or worse prove it?
Of course, in reality, most of these feelings are related to my insecurities and classic feelings of imposter syndrome, further exacerbated by age and quite frankly ‘rank’/role within the university (Mulholland, Nichol and Gillespie, 2023; Wilkinson, 2020; Yang et al., 2024). Regardless of how real these concerns are, and the likelihood of them being entirely true, the feelings and stress that they can conjure up are certainly real. Regardless, I decided to go full steam ahead with a focus group assembled of current and active students that I had been working with for the past term or so. I decided that for my project, there was no point in simply just measuring the success of the project quantitatively – although I did later decide to collect a small amount of data. Instead, I decided if I wanted the outcome to positively impact my teaching practice and the student experience I had to be ready for a more complex back-and-forth conversation (Winlow et al., 2013; Breen, 2006).
One of the great aspects of my job that I have mentioned many times on this blog is that currently, I get to work with a small amount of hands-on and enthusiastic students, who are all attending the lab out of choice. This is great because you get to spend more time getting to understand the projects and the person behind them. The downside is that feedback can feel a lot more personal due to a built-up working relationship. This is because it feels as if the feedback you receive can be more honest, but equally taken with a pinch of salt, as it’s unlikely students will attempt to directly criticise as there is still an unspoken institutional power dynamic at play that must be considered and acknowledged (Lama et al., 2015). This dynamic becomes especially relevant when the feedback received during focus group discussions begins to function as what Morris (2018) describes as a ‘warning light.’ These comments often act as indicators that highlight areas where effective learning or pedagogical practice may not be taking place. For instance, students’ hesitations or subtle critiques, even if not explicitly voiced, may point to underlying gaps in engagement or teaching strategies. In such a small-group setting, these moments of feedback are not just about identifying issues, but also an opportunity for reflection and improvement in my approach to teaching.
Focus Group Questions and Areas of Interest
So, my aim for the focus group was to, ‘review and reflect upon the changes’ made within my action research cycle. To do that I wanted to spark conversation and feedback on the following key areas:
- Initial Perspectives of the idea and generalised feedback.
- How the document could help serve as an aid in organisation, tracking and accountability.
- How the proposed learning pathway document/structure is received by and could support diverse learners, supported with an explanation of my own experience in education.
- The role that ‘Scaffolded Learning’ and a ‘Flipped Classroom Model’ could add to my teaching practice.
- How relevant and practical sections felt to a range of learners from different backgrounds and support expectations.
- How, or if, the document supports access to other resources and support available.
- How students felt about the proposed focus on independent learning and autonomy.
- Along with opening space for any overall general feedback, that may highlight issues or concerns that had been entirely ignored.
- Lastly, whilst I had the opportunity, I took some additional time to gain feedback and ask questions regarding the student experience within the lab as a whole, covering a range of basic areas such as workshop coverage too if they felt welcome.
To address all these areas I wrote a series of questions. Ultimately this was only supposed to be a starting point for me to develop on – however as days became weeks and the process of developing the actual learning pathway document took longer than anticipated, ultimately I decided to focus on that. Disappointingly I never came back to the questions/‘interview schedule’ which overall I have regretted, as I found some questions tended to be repetitive and out of sync. A lesson learned. However, overall do not believe it was a major issue as the general conversation began to flow quite early on which led to a more natural flow and integration regardless. If you are interested in the questions sheet I took with me as a prompt for the session, these can be downloaded and reviewed at the bottom of this blog post.
Organising the Focus Group
The organising of the focus group was one of the aspects I thought would have been much more difficult than transpired, due to the very small number of students I had worked with in the term (long enough to have any valuable input), approximately 11, I was hoping for a focus group size between 6 and 8. To increase the chances of students turning up I took a bit of a risk which I believe paid off, but ultimately left me in a bit of a tight spot for writing up my findings. I decided it was best to wait until the majority of students had completed their projects, leaving a time of limbo where the university is still open, but before most students go away for the break.
Due to the majority of my students being MA students I was concerned that I would be eating into the remaining time needed for them to complete their final major projects (even if scheduled on a day I would not normally be present), something I considered to be unfair and would create potential further bias within the results. To further sweeten the deal, I took onboard discussions from the PgCert classroom about providing some pastries, which I grabbed from M&S on the way in (see Figure 2) – something I am incredibly glad to have done as if anything it just helped break the ice a little bit, by breaking routines and fostering a relaxed atmosphere for students meeting as a group for the first time – and further was simply a thank you for taking time to be apart of the focus group. This was of course supported with a list of allergens.
To organise the group I sent out an email explaining the project (see Appendix A), my role, and attached the information document (found in my ethics blog). I followed this up with a calendar invite asking students if they would accept or decline to confirm the numbers and lastly a reminder email the evening before (see Figure 1). This worked surprisingly well and out of the 11 students invited 7 accepted and ultimately 6 turned up. Although It would have been nice to have a larger group, the students who did turn up were very engaged and vocal about their perspectives and views.
Figure 1. A reminder email was sent the night before.
Figure 2. Provided Pastries to Sweeten the Deal
Creating a comfortable discourse environment
I specifically choose to move from a non-standard teaching/working area for the focus group, to create a distinct barrier between my usual day-to-day role as a technician and my current role as a student and researcher. I also find myself usually standing up whilst presenting, of course, this has some issues regarding power dynamics with a presenter and speaker (Smith, 2017) – so at the last minute changed to a different seating arrangement entirely as I wanted everyone at an equal level in the hopes it would create a perceived level environment where people would feel more confident to speak if they didn’t already (see figure 3). Something I was acutely aware of. This is a decision I am very glad to have made as the environment was much nicer with comments made on how nice the space was by the students – with some even joking that the lab should change to this area. This in itself prompted me to ask more questions later on regarding how comfortable students felt within the lab, which at no surprise led to complaints of an uncomfortable learning environment due to the use of stools in the new Stratford campus.
Figure 3. Focus Group Space and Seating Layout
Figure 4. All participants were given a copy of the document to review [right], alongside my own questions/prompts for the session [left].
Running the Focus Group
As people arrived, I found myself walking around aimlessly as my nerves built up. During this time everyone began to sit down at a comfortable sofa area in the office I was borrowing. Annoyingly this seating arrangement had not even crossed my mind and was much better suited to having this sort of dialogue (Smith, 2017), however, due to the lack of table space I was worried about how the spacing could affect the recordings. A lesson I had learned from a previous course where I had spent hours speaking and relying on technology to take notes – only to discover after the session that the audio was barely audible. Once everyone had arrived and a little time had passed to allow everyone a chance to turn up, I handed out consent forms, information forms and ethics forms so that everyone could further review them before giving consent. I additionally provided answers to any questions and made it clear that no one was required to attend, be affected for leaving if they wanted to and lastly that they could remove consent at any time without repercussions or judgement. I then placed my phone on one side of the table and my laptop on the other side and made it clear to everyone that the audio recording was about to begin. I chose to use two devices to record audio in case one was not enough. In hindsight, this was the correct choice but if I were to do this again in the future I would take the time to source a proper table microphone as an absolute standard. Although I had a larger capture area, there was still a need for a significant amount of manual transcription correction.
In total, the focus group lasted 1.5 hours which was half an hour longer than anticipated and made it clear that people were more than welcome to leave at any point as the session was originally only scheduled for 1 hour. Overall the feedback I received was incredibly useful and targeted along with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm for its implementation, and the classic “That would have been so useful” comments which were incredibly encouraging and a massive relief to hear. The feedback received was comprehensive and so will be dissected within its own blog post. There were certainly more active speakers than others as is often the case. I didn’t want to pressure anyone into speaking but at the same time wanted to make sure everyone felt heard, so took the time to employ different methods of getting everyone involved for example, with some questions I would position the question to the whole group, whereas others I would ask to go round the table and ask for individual insights.
Additionally, I didn’t want to miss out on insights from those who were quieter, so I attempted to identify areas of difference that I knew about and enquire about how this may apply to their perspective to make sure everyone felt heard. One specific example of this was the range of attendance I have with my students so I wanted to get feedback from students who had primarily worked independently rather than with me the majority of the time, as shown in the following example (this is not a direct quotation for ethical concerns and is instead a summarised example):
“Elliott: Great. What about you guys? Would you stick to it? I know you’ve worked quite independently for a long time, so I wouldn’t want you to feel you were unable to access support because you didn’t fill in this document.
Student: I think it’s good to organise our thoughts and find details we might have forgotten. But I feel this kind of sheet is more for people who start working with you from the beginning.
We’ve worked independently for a long time. If we find problems, we’d rather talk to you directly. Focusing on specific problems and solve them fast.
Summarized Back and Forth Dialogue
Following Up with Quantitative Data
After reviewing the large amount of information, and showcasing a range of perspectives I realised in conversation with colleagues that it would have been nice just to of had a show of hands to some basic questions to help showcase my findings. However, I do believe there is much more beneficial data received from having a focus group as it highlights the complexities of a project like this. Having a simple yes, no, or other – for core foundational questions would have been beneficial (Kelle, 2006). Although late I decided there was no time like the present and prepared a very quick 3-question, questionnaire and sent it out to all of the participants who had attended the session, but more importantly, from who I received a completed consent form. I decided that if I had any hope of getting any usable data, the questionnaire would have to be quick, simple, anonymous, and overarching enough that it would not require a memory of the detailed conversations. This led me to the following questions:
Q: Do you think the implementation of the presented learning pathway document would have supported you and your project or documentation?
Answer Options: Yes, No – this would not have aided me, No – I only came for occasional support.
Q: Did you prefer the implementation of the new booking system? (if you experienced it prior to the booking system)
Answer Options: Yes, No, Not Applicable (Did not experience it prior)
Q: Lastly, do you think the implementation of group tutorials on common problems/topics would be useful? (i.e a scheduled drop-in for Fusion360, EasyEDA or other topics)
Answer Options: Yes, No
These were sent out via a follow-up email and to my surprise received 5 out of 6 completions in less than a day. Although I have not received all 6 responses (as of writing), it is certainly nice to see the results positively plotted (see Figure 5), it would of course have been nicer to have seen a much higher response rate but have to remind myself that I have a limited pool to begin with.
Figure 5. Example survey response plotted on a chart.
To Conclude
Overall, it was certainly an interesting experience and certainly not as terrifying as I had found myself expecting. If I were doing the whole thing again, there would certainly be some changes, being a bit more prepared, a practice run, gaining some qualitative feedback on the day – and livening it up a bit. Perhaps some activities to break the ice or an interesting way to cast votes such as digital polling tools, but overall I am pleased with how well it went, and the usefulness of the information gathered. It was a genuinely pleasant experience and also found it acting as a bit of a celebration of all the amazing work that had been done during the term. I have found myself with the surprising goal of running one at the end of every year or term as a way to gain feedback, wrap up the year and celebrate the achievements of the past term. Pastries provided… of course.
If you have any feedback, questions or ideas on how I can improve these sessions in the future, like usual I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Thanks for taking the time to read my post.
Downloads:
Bibliography:
Breen, R. L. (2006) ‘A Practical Guide to Focus-Group Research’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 30(3), pp. 463–475. doi: 10.1080/03098260600927575.
Kelle, U. (2006) ‘Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in research practice: purposes and advantages’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, pp. 293–311. Available at: https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143132088.
Lama, T. B., Arias, P., Mendoza, K. A. and Manahan, J. (2015) ‘Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys: do students provide accurate and reliable information?’, in. Available at: https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:107162893.
Morris, D. (2018) ‘Beyond Satisfaction’. doi: 10.4324/9781315187518-23.
Mulholland, K., Nichol, D. and Gillespie, A. (2023) ‘“It feels like you’re going back to the beginning…”: addressing imposter feelings in early career academics through the creation of communities of practice’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 47(1), pp. 89–104. doi: 10.1080/0309877X.2022.2095896.
Smith, C. (2017) ‘The influence of hierarchy and layout geometry in the design of learning spaces’, in. Available at: https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:55453550.
Wilkinson, C. (2020) ‘Imposter syndrome and the accidental academic: an autoethnographic account’, International Journal for Academic Development, 25(4), pp. 363–374. doi: 10.1080/1360144x.2020.1762087.
Winlow, H., Simm, D., Marvell, A. and Schaaf, R. (2013) ‘Using Focus Group Research to Support Teaching and Learning’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(2), pp. 292–303. doi: 10.1080/03098265.2012.696595.
Yang, X., Yeo, K. J., Lee, S.-H. and Handayani, L. (2024) ‘A systematic review of impostor syndrome in higher education’, IJERE, 13(6), p. 3884. doi: 10.11591/ijere.v13i6.30726.
Appendix A:
Wearable Tech – Focus Group (Donuts Provided) [In-person]
Fri 29/11/2024 11:00 – 12:00
Digital Learning Lab
Hello all,
You’re receiving this invite based on my previous email of which you can see below. Please if you can mark if you are able to attend or not so I can confirm numbers, hope to see you there!
Previous Email:
Hello there all,
If you’re receiving this email, you are one of a small number of students that at some point or other, you have interacted with myself/Wearable Tech at the Digital Learning Lab.
Just as you are working hard to complete your qualifications, I’m also studying part-time for a PgCert in Academic Practice at UAL—and I could really use your help!
Proposed Date/Time: Friday, 29th November 2024, 11am – 12pm (1hr)
If you would be willing to give up an hour of your time, I would be greatly appreciative. Essentially, I need you, to hear your unfiltered thoughts and experiences about how wearable tech runs as a technical area. I would like to propose changes to make it easier for both student and technician to work and would greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts!
Questions you may be having:
Q: What will this feedback be used for?
A: This feedback will be used to write a report about my proposed idea, negative and positive feedback is equally valued. For more information, please read the attached information document.
Q: Will I be named?
A: No, all feedback will be anonymised, please see the attached information document for more information.
Q: When is it?
A: I am currently proposing Friday the 29th of November at 11am. However, this depends on the number of students who can make it as my aim is to get as many people who can attend as possible due to the low sample size.
Q: Can I withdraw.
A: Yes. That is no problem, you can withdraw consent at any time with no questions asked and you will not be penalised in any way.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my email if you have any questions, please feel free to reply to this email or contact me directly. If you are willing and able to attend, I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know so that I have an idea for numbers. Alternatively, if you would like to attend but are unable to make the date and time, please do suggest alternatives.
Thank you very much for your time!
Best,
………………………………………………………
Elliott Hall
Specialist Technician (L&T) Wearable Technology
Digital Learning Lab