Nicky Lambert SFHEA Health and Education
Higher education should be a benefit to students: There is an expectation that the experience of learning should help to create critical thinkers and skilled practitioners but also that learning environments should help them to develop themselves as people and active members of their communities. However recent UK research (Aceijas et al. 2017) found that the health-related lifestyles of the student population are concerning and suggests that the trend in chronic diseases associated with unhealthy lifestyles established in universities could impact future generations. This study was designed to investigate students’ wellbeing and to identify barriers and social determinants of healthier lifestyles. The methodology consisted of an online survey, two focus groups and three in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The students answered a 67-item questionnaire comprising six scales: Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity, Rapid Eating and Activity Assessment for Patients–Short Version, CAGE, Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence, Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale short version, and ad hoc scale for drug use/misuse.
The findings indicated that:
- 60% of the respondents were insufficiently physically active,
- 47% had an unbalanced diet
- 30% had poor mental wellbeing.
- Alcohol drinkers versus abstinent were almost equally distributed. A total of 42% of alcohol drinkers reported getting drunk at least once a month.
- Smokers accounted for 16% of the respondents.
- Identified risk factors for suboptimal physical activity were as follows: being a woman, not using the university gym and smoking.
- Risk factors for unbalanced diet were low mental wellbeing and drug use. Poor mental wellbeing was predicted by unbalanced diet, not feeling like shopping and cooking frequently, and a lack of help-seeking behaviour in cases of distress.
- The qualitative analysis revealed issues with students transitioning to a new life as learners. Students also highlighted problems with university environment and systems that they found unsupportive of their wellbeing - which included finances, academic pressure, and a lack of health promotion on campus. However the participants were engaged in the question of wellbeing and were motivated to suggest solutions.
These findings are unsurprising in terms of UK public health and form part of a wider picture of students under pressure and the increasing use of university wellbeing and support services. The UK Healthy Universities Network (http://www.healthyuniversities.ac.uk ) was formed in response to these growing concerns and works to encourage a ‘whole university’ approach to health, wellbeing and sustainability. It is part of a global movement calling upon higher education institutions to:
- incorporate health and sustainability into their mission, vision and strategic plans
- lead and drive change in society by modelling, testing and transferring innovative approaches
Students pick up on the lessons we explicitly teach but also the ones that we unconsciously role model!
Wellbeing: supporting Leadership and Management students
Dr Mary Hartog, Director Organisation and Leadership Practice
In the Business School we provide Leadership Development and Management Practice Postgraduate programmes for public sector staff in social work and in mental health. Both of these work contexts are personally demanding and staff require a level of resilience to cope with the demands of their work. Leadership and Management brings additional pressures to the work, particularly with people management and responsibilities for working within budgetary constraints. In organisations, Leadership and Management involve political and emotional savvy, including soft skills such as reflection and resilience. As part of our programme we use action learning sets, where participants come together in small peer groups of 4 or 5, facilitated by a tutor who is trained in this process of management learning and who understands the dynamics of group working. The aim of the action learning set is to provide a space for reflection on the issues of their professional practice that are keeping them awake at night, and importantly, providing them with time to think (both individually and collectively), about their issues and how they might resolve them, or what they need to do to look after themselves in the process. Not with-standing, the more formal teaching content of these programmes, the overwhelming feedback from participants about what adds value, to their learning and sense of wellbeing are these action learning sessions, which are integrated into the overall programme design . With our mental health leaders we have been also working with mindfulness to help them expand their capacity for personal awareness and wellbeing. Mindfulness practice can help stop ‘the internal chatter of the mind’, in other-words, the noise that can overwhelm a person, and help concentrate the mind on how we are feeling in the moment. By introducing breathing exercises and reflective visualisation exercises into our teaching, these techniques have helped to create a space for learning for busy professionals, who generally have little time to stop in their daily routines. Linked to this work we have introduced reflecting writing into the syllabus, to help students review and reflect on their practice and learning.
Listening and supporting students across diverse gender identities: What do we need to know?
Trish Hafford-Letchfield, Professor of Social Care and Alfonso Pezzella, Associate Lecturer Mental Health, Department of Mental Health and Social Work
Did you know that students who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming or gender diverse are one of the highest risk groups for discrimination, harassment, problems with mental health including problematic substance use, self-harm and suicide? Yet they are one of the least likely groups of students to ask for support and to access services. They are also known to have shown tremendous resilience and strengths as a result of adverse experiences. These are just some of the findings from our systematic review of international research that we conducted last year to try and capture the experiences of trans and gender diverse students in post-compulsory education (see Hafford-Letchfield et al, 2017). We found that the experiences of students who identify as trans and gender diverse are significantly under-researched particularly in the UK. Further, conducting research is challenging due to the sheer complexities of identities and the language used to describe these. It is very important to engage students themselves in the design of studies so that these can be translated into outcomes that will benefit them.
Entering into higher education may be a significant time for students to develop or transition into their desired identities For those of us working in education, common issues faced in supporting them involve a lack of confidence and familiarity with trans and gender diversity issues; lack of visibility and the way in which institutional life promotes cisnormativity and heteronormativity which can lead to unwitting exclusion. We may also have a fear of getting it wrong particularly where gender diversity intersects with other diverse characteristics. Indeed, one of the reasons for undertaking our review was because we became aware of our lack of knowledge when faced with a student identifying as trans.
We identified four main themes in the research where findings were common and consistent. These concerned how students navigated their identities across different spaces in education; the significance of factors contributing towards safety and wellbeing; how institutions respond to transgender individuals and groups from a systems perspective and the rich theoretical contributions that emerged from the individual studies which help to position transgender student experience and their engagement in post-compulsory education. All of these themes illustrated that educational institutions have enormous work to do to reach any meaningful standards for transgender inclusion. In short, there is still so much work to do!
Some of our tops tips for inclusion include:
- Including a statement in module/programme handbooks on avoiding hetero and cis normative language and discuss what constitutes abusive or discriminatory language with students at induction.
- Make sure you complete the online module on equality and diversity which provides some useful pointers on our responsibilities towards the rights of students identifying as trans or gender non-conforming.
- Encourage students to draw on their experiences and expectations around sexual and gender diversity during learning and provide opportunities for students to discuss different cultural experiences.
- Embrace LGBT issues in sessions on equality, social justice, history, literature and embed these into the curriculum. Showcase and integrate LGBTQ role models from your own discipline.
- Challenge homophobia, bi-phobia and transphobia and educate others in response.
- Make sure that you know the procedures and legislative guidelines around trans rights and particularly in relation to disclosure. Find out where to signpost students who need advice and support on trans issues and who they can talk to about any difficulties. Link students to mentors and peer mentors.
- Be an ally and provide spaces in which students are able to become involved and engaged in social action such as Middlesex LGBT and everyone else group that can be found on the intranet (https://www.intra.mdx.ac.uk/key-information/equality-and-diversity/sexual-orientation/lgbt-staff-forum/lgbt-members)
- Listen to students and take responsibility to educate yourself about gender diversity, appropriate language and pronouns and how to promote inclusiveness.
- Monitor and audit any issues in your provision regularly and proactively raise issues in your departments and schools so that we can make improvements together.
Reference: Hafford-Letchfield, T., Pezzella, A., Cole, L., Manning, R (2017) Transgender students in post-compulsory education: a systematic review. International Journal of Educational Research, 86 . pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2017.08.004
Wellbeing and technology?
Dr George Dafoulas, Associate Professor, Director of Programmes EIS.
The notion of wellbeing is usually overlooked in fields where educational technology is at the core of the learning experience. Our work has spanned from using virtual worlds for remote teaching to the use of sensors to record student contribution in project meetings and team presentations. During such activities it is possible to omit the need to assess student wellbeing. The use of technology may have a decremental effect on students’ performance, while instructors ignore the importance to assess how the use of technology may affect individuals. This should be part of a learning needs analysis prior to the use of educational technologies or any other tools facilitating the learning process. However, the use of sensor data, gamification tools and learning management platforms may have a positive effect on student wellbeing. Learning analytics can draw the attention of instructors to irregular patterns of student behaviour, and offer an early indication for something that is out of the norm or unusual progress, performance or even behaviour. Sensor-generated data could also be used to assess aspects of wellbeing such as stress, lack of confidence, and absenteeism. Again the role of the tools used should be to facilitate instructors in identifying evidence for issues affecting student wellbeing.
Mentoring/coaching worklife balance
Dr Julie Haddock-Millar, Associate Professor of Human Resource Management
As a Mentor and Coach, wellbeing and work-life balance is an area of particular interest as I have found that these themes dominate conversations in all contexts. Helping others to develop their ability to negotiate can influence both short-term and long-term outcomes in many different aspects of life. Numerous studies have found that in the education profession, an inability to balance academic and family responsibilities was a critical factor influencing women’s departure from academia (Moen & Sweet, 2004). More recently, there has been a surge in studies examining fathers’ experiences in the home and work. Research by Harrington et al., (2012) found that fathers who had high levels of involvement with their children experienced positive benefits. A mixed method empirical study by Reddick et al., (2012) of junior male professors with young families, found that the balance between their tenure-track work situation and raising children placed a strain on their relationships. One participant explained: “It took a toll on my marriage. My wife was really upset with how little time I had for us. She would say, “I don’t want to live like this.’” (p.5). Furthermore, participants claimed that “they would cut their salaries by one fourth if they could have more family and personal time” (p.2). In doing so, this would involve navigating and negotiating the demands and expectations of the organisation and management team alongside the personal desire to be more involved in home life.
In relation to work-life balance, recent studies demonstrate that failing to negotiate comes at a high cost. Changes in workplace culture, where individuals are increasingly being expected to take charge of their own learning and career trajectory, make it essential for people to exercise more control over their career development and employability (Sullivan & Baruch, 2010). In what has been described as the boundaryless career, successful individuals are now wedded to their career and personal stakeholders, not the organisation. Therefore, negotiation is no longer an option but an essential skill in achieving greater wellbeing and work-life balance.
The use of poetry for wellbeing
Dr Christine Eastman (SFHEA) Senior Lecturer Business School.
One thing that I try to incorporate into each seminar is a small poetry text that gets students to reflect on their wellbeing either before we start the seminar/workshop or at the end.
The other week I went to SAP headquarters in London and worked with a group of IT specialists on their projects. We finished with a beautiful poem by Walt Whitman describing listening to an astronomer's lecture which is obviously as dull as ditch water and totally uninspiring.
The narrator feels tired and depressed, then wanders out to gaze onto the magic of nature, the night sky. We discussed Whitman's extolling of the idea of experiential learning (as opposed to academic learning) and explored how experiencing life's marvels was the ideal way to learn.
Here is the poem: ‘When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer’ (1865)
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shows the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Something as unexpected as the introduction of a poem to reflect on is conducive to both physical and mental wellbeing for students in any discipline.
