#Take5 #138 The role of Learning Developers in supporting PGR students to navigate the hidden curriculum

In this #Take5 blog Craig Morley, Steve Briggs and Sandra Sinfield consider how Learning Development practitioners can best support PGR students to understand the hidden curriculum. 

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The JLDHE Reading Club Started It!

The origin of this blog came from a Wednesday evening spent discussing Rebecca Nash’s case study View of ‘It gives you that motivation to keep pushing on’: reflecting on the role of dialogic skills workshops on postgraduate researchers’ academic preparedness and ‘belonging’ in a recent Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education Reading Club. An aspect of the case study that immediately jumped out to all of us was the impact that the hidden curriculum can have on postgraduate research (PGR) students’ confidence and sense of belonging as a research student. This sparked the sharing of stories of when we too had to stumble our way blindly forward as previous PGRs when encountering the hidden curriculum ourselves. At one point in our conversations, Steve also shared a blog post by Kay Guccione on ‘Supporting PGRs to navigate the Hidden Curriculum’, which prompted us to think about what role Learning Developers can play in helping PGR students to demystify, understand and successfully navigate all the implicit, tacit and typically un-named things that make up the PGR Hidden Curriculum. 

What is the hidden curriculum?

“The hidden curriculum in higher education shapes student experiences in ways that are themselves hidden. Unwritten rules, implicit expectations, and cultural nuances can deeply impact learning and belonging, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this chat, we will explore the hidden curriculum, its impact on students, and consider how we can make higher education more inclusive and transparent” LTHE Chat Team.

The above is just one definition of the hidden curriculum, but we believe its focus on the ‘unwritten rules, implicit expectations and cultural nuances’ that are often left unexplained or unexplored captures the essence of what makes the hidden curriculum so insidious in the negative impact it can have on students. Knowledge, or lack of, these unwritten and implicit aspects of higher education can directly influence who feels like they belong – and who feels like an academic outsider: who is part of the in-groups and who is on the outside, forever lurking on the periphery. As Learning Developers we see the effect of engaging in HE whilst unaware not just of the academic labour that has to be engaged in – simple things like note-making and academic reading – but also the impact of not quite realising or understanding the power of dialogue to catalyse learning or the role that belonging plays in making university a space of growth.

Helping students to navigate the hidden curriculum 

As awareness of the hidden curriculum has increased, so have attempts to support staff and students to shine a light on the implicit and unspoken aspects of university life (such as the QAA’s Guidance). Examples of teaching and learning practices supporting students to demystify the hidden curriculum have been provided by Tim Hinchcliffe, AdvanceHE: and include assessment feedback, the impact of the climate emergency on campus life, the use of technology in academia, the importance of empathy in transitioning to higher education, provision for estranged and care-experienced students, the experiences of autistic students, issues of social class in the hidden curriculum, representation of ethnic minority teachers, and the impact of the hidden curriculum on working-class individuals.  

A trend across these examples is how, especially in the interests of education for social justice and equity, we need to work to surface the hidden curriculum and align that to the specific circumstances of student cohorts. It is our experience that it is here that PGR students will have some needs comparable with those studying for a postgraduate taught (PGT) or undergraduate (UG) qualification but also needs that are unique to undertaking PGR studies. 

The more universal hidden curriculum

Learning Developers work with and alongside students to de-mystify the hidden curriculum itself – making transparent the forms and processes of HE, so that students can act with understanding and agency within their studies and within their institutions. Typically with UG students, especially the so-called ‘non-traditional’ ones, whilst they may be prepared to work hard – they may not be aware of the exact nature of the academic labour in which they will have to engage. If we are lucky, there is an understanding that there are mysteries to be uncovered and strategies to be employed that will make them more powerful and more successful. This understanding sets a positive scene – and we all know this work: helping students transition to active learning – deconstructing note-making as part of the learning process – unravelling academic reading – helping students understand the assessment and feedback journey.

However the story is not so simple when it comes to the PGR student – not least because in many institutions Learning Development is not placed to help those students – and those students may not be positioned to feel that they need that additional, often centralised, support.

The needs of PGR students 

Perhaps counter-intuitively, we believe that PGR students are particularly vulnerable to the hidden curriculum given that they will have previously studied at a HE institute(s):

• The very fact that PGRs have been previously successful in HE can mean that the insecurities that arise when they do feel all at sea can have a much bigger impact – damaging self-confidence in ways that are perhaps unexpected and under-supported by traditional PGR programmes.
  
• The differences between university processes and fundamental variations between studying at a PGR level compared to PGT or UG will mean that for many there will be multiple aspects of curricula that are unknown or unfamiliar – and yet they may not be expecting to feel so lost and perhaps so alone.
  
• Whilst PGRs may have been previously successful – they may not have taken the time to reflect on what exactly it was that made education ‘work’ for them before. Typically we have found PGRs struggling with solitary academic reading – but unable to admit it. We have seen those that have never truly grasped the power of note-making – nor have a note-making strategy ready to adapt for the bigger challenge of high stakes research and writing that takes place over time. 

Beyond these academic practices, PGRs may never have surfaced or recognised the power of ‘belonging’ itself: of the fact that having friends and allies studying on the same course was valuable – that that might have been the very thing that helped them stay when feeling overwhelmed or lost. They may never have consciously appreciated the value of low stakes group work – or of high stakes group assignments: that there is power in dialogue, that discussion is not a waste of time, and that their peers are not competition but valuable fellow travellers.

“When I was a PGR student I suddenly found I was the only one who cared about the research and writing I was undertaking for my PhD. As a PGT and UG student it was so different, my cohort all shared the same focus for assessments and eagerness to learn about the subject. This gave me constant access to a support network with a shared goal”.

The unexpected novelty of being a new PGR student, manifests its own hidden curriculum – and it is both the newness and its unexpected nature that makes it difficult for students to navigate and for us to support. In particular it is hard to get time poor and pressured PGRs to access more ‘open’ collaborative spaces designed to help them come together to support each other as they ‘become’ PGRs. And yet, creating moments for collective recognition can in the process break down the fears that the students may have about themselves that they keep hidden: impostor syndrome, realising for the first time that they have never enjoyed academic reading, nor cracked the code of successful high level reading practices, as highlighted by PGRs in Rebecca Nash’s case study. 

If these aspects, these very human and dialogic aspects, of successful study are not recognised – they cannot be valued – nor will the students strive to recreate such interconnecting and interconnected processes and practices whilst studying for their PhD.

So how could a Learning Developer help?

We might first think of the more conventional role that the Learning Developer might play:

• Supporting development of notemaking/notetaking, including use of technologies.

• Consideration of advanced reading techniques, including development of  personalised reading lists so able to revisit as needed later in the writing process. (The trouble with academic reading: exposing hidden threshold concepts through academic reading retreats | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education)
  
• Supporting conversations about the literature review – and how to go about producing one.

• As well as the librarian offering training and induction to university-centric practices and services such as, advance use of library discovery platforms / interlibrary loans.
  
• Presentation skills associated with preparation for vivas or sharing work at conferences (How improvisation techniques can support researchers with the development of public speaking skills | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education)

• Building professional networks with other PGR students along with scholars working in the same subject area. (Contact, connection, and communication: online community building on a professional doctorate | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education)
  
• Deconstructing the PhD itself.
  

We have found that at the outset people appreciate the reassurance of more instructional sessions. The hope that we have is that productive engagement in these sorts of focussed sessions begins to surface awareness of the value of the more dialogic session itself and in the process convince that time poor PGR who needs to make every moment ‘count’, that the more open support session is worth it. In particular sessions like:

• Developing teamwork strategies, perhaps with a focus on developing networks or working effectively with a supervisor. 

• Writing Studios or Retreats to create writing space and time (Impact of writing workshops on doctoral student wellness | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and Adapting community-focused writing support for researchers to synchronous online delivery | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education) and – from dr hidden curriculum – building a research culture through Shut Up and Write!  

• Writing to learn: Sessions to surface attitudes to writing – and to consider how to overcome barriers and leverage good practices – like free writing and writing to learn.
  

Over to you

We invite readers to reflect on and share their own experiences in terms of helping PGR students to make sense of the hidden curriculum. What have others found beneficial – for example timing – frequency – themed – intake-centric or more open support?

To support reflection we post the following questions: 

• How can PGR induction address the hidden curriculum?
• What are important themes to explore when uncovering the PGR hidden curriculum? 
• How can PGR hidden curriculum support be best promoted to students?
• What is the best frequency of sessions – intensive or spread out / ‘open’ or ‘closed’?
• What implicit or unwritten aspects of the PGR hidden curriculum are Learning Developers best place to help uncover and understand?
• How are PGR hidden curriculum focused sessions tied into the wider eco-system of PGR development opportunities (e.g. ‘new to teaching’ training courses) to create a holistic approach?

Author profiles

Craig Morley is a Senior Lecturer in Academic Development in the University Teaching Academy at Manchester Metropolitan University, before which he had worked in various Learning Development roles at both the University of Manchester and the University of Chester. Craig is also a Section Editor for the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education.  

Steve Briggs was Co-Chair of the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education where he led national work related to professional recognition and networking events including the introduction of the CEP and CELP scheme. Steve is a Chartered Psychologist, National Teaching Fellow (2020) and PFHEA.

Sandra Sinfield, CeLP, SFHEA, UTF, CATE (2022), is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Centre for Teaching Enhancement at LondonMet. Sandra is interested in creativity as liberatory, holistic, and reparative practice in Higher Education; she has developed theatre and film in unusual places; and inhabited SecondLife as a learning space.