The Practice
This project follows a BILT-funded project which looked at neuroinclusivity in teaching and assessment within the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (CMM), where group work was raised as an important factor for increasing inclusivity by our undergraduate student partners. To delve into this further, we ran 5 focus group sessions with neurodivergent (ND) students or neurotypical (NT) students (separately) to ask about their experiences of group work. Our representation was 67% NT and 33%ND, from 15 students in total.
Findings
Full thematic analysis of focus group transcripts is ongoing, but we are able to share some initial insights. During focus group discussions, neurotypical students typically said they had not undertaken a lot of group work, whereas neurodivergent students were far more aware of the range of group work undertaken as part of their programmes. This included activities such as working in groups in workshops, tutorials, to produce a grant proposal or poster, or while undertaking practical work in the lab. Students were recruited from the CMM and Biomedical Sciences programmes, so there was significant overlap in their opportunities for groups work. Both groups of students spoke about group dynamics being important in the success of group work, however, neurodivergent students were more likely to have negative experiences of group work. For neurodivergent students, it was more important that clear expectations of group members are specified from the start by the staff member leading sessions. They also spoke of their anxiety at having to contact peers to set up the group work for some activities and questioned if this could be facilitated by the member of staff within the sessions introducing the work. Neurodivergent students questioned the importance of a single form of output for some activities (such as an in-person presentation). They suggested having a range of possible outputs within each group task, that would allow individuals to choose which output they would be more comfortable with, such as podcasts, recorded presentations, or posters.
The main lesson learnt for us while undertaking this project was around the difficulty of recruiting students to focus groups, despite using vouchers as an incentive. While we had 44 expressions of interest to take part in a focus group, only 15 students actually participated. We think that this may in part have been due to the muti-stage process of signing up for a focus group, where students who expressed interest had to give informed consent before we could share a sign-up form allowing them to join a focus group for either neurodivergent or neurotypical students. We would certainly look carefully at streamlining this process in future, whilst adhering to protocols approved by the ethics committee.
The Impact
It is clear that neurodivergent students are more aware of group work than neurotypical students and that this is associated with an increase in negative experiences and anxiety. We are the in the process of constructing a document for students to share findings and suggestions for how all students can contribute to making group work more inclusive for neurodivergent students. We will highlight to staff that clearer expectations and guidance around group work is required and important to help with group dynamics. We will also ask that more thought is given to the types of assessed outputs, where possible.
Next Steps
The preliminary results from this project have been shared with colleagues at a BILT Show, Tell and Talk session, where we were also able to share our ‘Ideas for Neuroinclusive Teaching and Assessment in Science’ poster, created in our previous BILT-funded project. This resource has been shared widely with colleagues within the University to raise awareness of easy-to-implement changes that can be made to make teaching and assessment more inclusive for all students. Development of a new resource or students to support neuroinclusivity in group work will complement the existing resource for staff members, helping students to work collaboratively and recognise the strengths everyone brings to the student educational experience.
Contact
For more information, please contact Dr Bronwen Burton – Bronwen.burton@bristol.ac.uk or Dr Caroline McKinnon – c.m.mckinnon@bristol.ac.uk
