The Practice
The outcome of this project was to co-create the summative group coursework of a Year 1 Statistics unit in the undergraduate Economics and Finance programme with 6 Year 2 students who had previously taken this unit. This unit provides the essential statistical foundations for further studies in their programme. In the project, we built a democratic space for co-designing where students passionate about developing academic content creatively implemented their ideas, used their knowledge, study interests to create material for the assessment, which was about economic issues, policies they considered important to study. The aim was to make the assessment subject more accessible and relatable for students, which the content co-designers shared in their reflections. Co-creation requiring intensive intellectual contribution instils higher order study skills, as well as developing graduate attributes like collaboration and teamwork skills; students shared they liked the group aspect of the project.
As part of the project, I trained students in statistical question designing through scaffolding activities like identifying, building statistical questions (using Financial Times articles), detailed discussions on question formation, marking criteria (scrutinizing a past coursework). By sharing ideas, narrowing down topics, we gradually built questions through 4 2-hourly group meetings which would be part of the coursework for Year 1 students in the year 2025/26.
Findings
Our student collaborators chose two topics for the coursework: the first on analyzing the economic and social impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, and the second on studying the effects of Covid-19 in the UK labour market.
Following the training on statistical question designing, finalization of topic choices, we discussed related articles, data sets, the aims of a statistical question, interconnections between questions, what works and what does not. By engaging deeply in these collaborative discussions, we co-developed questions, themes to build further questions that were at a level appropriate for a Year 1 statistical assessment. We encouraged students to share reflections of the co-designing process after each group meeting. Examples of these reflections are as follows:
Reflection from project meeting 1:
“It was a good introduction meeting to the project. I enjoyed hearing everyone’s perspectives and questions on how we could go forward with the assessment formats. Reading the articles provided and hearing my teammates ideas gave me more clarification on what kinds of questions would be considered statistical. The first meeting provided a good foundation and inclination as to what we would be working towards in the following meetings”
Reflection from project meeting 2:
“Another good meeting where we discussed very practical and applicable scenarios where there was use of statistical methods. It was good to see some of the topics requested used for discussion. Hopefully in the next session we can go further to link these with statistical approaches and theory.”
Reflection from project meeting 3:
“The meeting was well thought of in the wider scheme of things as we gradually built on the questions we considered last session”
The Impact
We collated information about the students’ overall experience from working in this project through a focus group discussion. The focus group was led by BILT Student Fellow Miyambo Kabwe.
Students appreciated the collaborative process, discussion-based experience, novelty in content creation. They liked crafting questions with latest news, understanding what to look for when building questions, being able to revisit their learning and work on content they find relevant.
The topic investigating the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis stemmed from a student’s prior interest in American Civil Studies. Thereupon through conversations we designed questions to examine how this major financial crisis affected socioeconomic outcomes, the variation in impact by demographic characteristics, the heterogeneity in impact by regions, the role of policies in mitigating impact. The topic about analysing the impact of Covid-19 on the UK labour market was chosen by another student which is a meaningful study area following the consequences of this global phenomenon. This was then developed to understand and analyse how Covid-19 shaped working lives in the UK, its continued impact on the UK labour market, policy interactions and their implications.
The give and take of ideas produced detailed insights, varied perspectives, and helped students in forming questions. Applying their ideas to real world questions pushed critical thinking. They found the stories generated during content design very interesting, the discussion based experienced made it easier for them to interact. The guidance they received through our conversations helped them understand the work and overall aims of the project.
Students acknowledged how the project contributed to acquiring new skills like learning project management, logical question designing, careful evaluation of statistics and approaching application of theoretical questions to real life examples in a more dynamic way. They recognized co-developing will make this assessment more relatable, accessible for students as they have been designed by those who have been in their shoes before. Moreover, they shared that getting a range of perspectives is important in creating assessments and the co-creation process bridges the gap between students and academics.
Participating in this project enhanced employability skills as well and a student shared how having this project on CV generated interest from prospective employers during a career’s fair.
Next Steps
Using the material co-developed as a base we will build further the content for this coursework. We will share with students taking the assessment how this was formed through co-designing. We will collect student feedback on this assessment and use this as foundation for future co-creation projects.
Contact
Please contact Satadru Mukherjee, lecturer in the School of Economics for more information about this project. satadru.mukherjee@bristol.ac.uk
