Identifying barriers for staff engagement with pedagogic resources that promote the embedding of wellbeing in the curriculum
Identifying barriers for staff engagement with pedagogic resources that promote the embedding of wellbeing in the curriculum
A project co-ordinated by The University of Warwick and King's College London (KCL)
Introduction
The curriculum is crucial to students’ mental health and wellbeing; indeed, the whole process of learning, including teaching and assessment, impacts on the overall students experience at university but also on their personal wellbeing, ability to flourish and become engaged citizens.
A plethora of resources has recently been developed to support universities and staff in embedding wellbeing and student mental health in the curriculum, providing ideas for curriculum design and planning. WIHEA has funded the development of the Warwick Wellbeing Pedagogies Library and similarly AdvanceHE has released the Education for Mental Health Toolkit. Both these resources provide evidence informed guidance on how the curriculum can support both wellbeing and learning, though with substantial differences in the way information is presented.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to evaluate the impact of these resources as well as their effective uptake from staff. The perception remains that staff engagement with resources of this type is often limited.
Thus, this project aimed to identify barriers for staff engagement with pedagogic resources that promote the embedding of wellbeing in the curriculum, suggesting possible ways forward and solutions.
Project Aims and Outputs
During the workshops, which were delivered in April and May 2024, the two resources were introduced and staff and students facilitated small group discussions among staff about their perception of the resources, difficulties in assimilating them within their own practices, concerns over proposed interventions and institutional barriers to implementation. Key themes around barriers to implementation included: Awareness of the resources and appropriate marketing of their existence; time, workload and recognition issues; wider level university support (e.g. policy, leadership buy in); concerns around how to implement, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.
The focus groups also highlighted the value of these toolkits for supporting both student and staff wellbeing, and made suggestions to improve uptake of these resources into practice. These included focus on advertising and marketing the resources, providing training on use of resources, seeking endorsement and buy-in from university leaders and detailing evidence about the effectiveness of such tools.
Findings of this project will be disseminated to the Dean of Students Office and PVC Education, presented in a WIHEA Masterclass to support inclusive practice toolkit design, and through journal articles.
Project Team
Dr. Elena RivaLink opens in a new window
Project Co-lead
Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL), University of Warwick
Morenike Allison
BSc student
Dept. of Psychology, University of Warwick
Shofia Mawaddh
PhD student
Dept. of Psychology, King's College London
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