Students' pandemic reflections - my biggest hope is for placement

The disruption to student life during the pandemic was well publicised, but less is known about how students coped during this time and how their engagement with university life was affected.

Our recent research focused on the experiences of new and returning undergraduate students who were studying on courses designed to support employment with children, young people and families, with some progressing into teaching.

We used creative outputs and narratives as a way of studying experience (Connelly and Clandinin, 2006) and of understanding how people make sense of the world (Bruner, 1991).

Ethical approval was granted by the institution and informed consent was obtained from all of the participants. We were concerned that taking part in the research may affect students emotionally, so we provided each participant with contact details for support services at the university. As the submissions were received, we had concerns about a particular student and felt it necessary to reach out to them to ensure their safety. Further contact satisfied us that they were accessing the support they needed. 

Seventeen students submitted a wide variety of creative outputs and narratives, between September 2020 and April 2021, including: photo journals, poems and digital art.

A thematic analysis of the data was undertaken, viewed through Kahu’s (2013) four mechanisms of student engagement:

• belonging
• emotions
• wellbeing
• self-efficacy

This model recognises that student engagement is not static, but a process, supported by Kahu’s four mechanisms in the educational setting (Kahu and Nelson, 2018).

Notably, placement emerged across each mechanism as central to students' engagement. This was unanticipated. There is little research on placement in the existing literature on student engagement. 

Findings: emotions

These hopes and experiences, focusing on placement, were replicated by many students within their creative work and narratives and wonderfully demonstrated, across each mechanism, by this quote from one participant’s narrative:

My biggest hope for the academic year is regarding placement. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic earlier in the academic year our block placement was cut short. I am hoping that when it is time for our next block placement that the situation will be less severe: allowing for the full placement to be completed. Placement is my favourite part of my university experience, and I was sad when the duration was cut short. I am also hoping for another placement which continues to push me as a professional and a person."

Findings: student wellbeing

A less surprising, but no less important aspect of the research findings, was rich data around student wellbeing. Student wellbeing was a well-known concern prior to the pandemic (Neves and Hewitt, 2020). By far the biggest emotion expressed by the students was anxiety and how this affected their wellbeing.

However, the students also presented their coping mechanisms for engaging with their studies. This included time spent with their families generating feelings of belonging, which then supported their wellbeing and their engagement with the university. Students spoke about the health and safety guidance at the university and nationally, making them feel like they were, as one participant shared, ‘in it together’.

Future research

As a small-scale study, we acknowledge that this research has its limitations, but it has certainly highlighted the value that the students put on placement and that more research is needed to investigate further the relationship between placement and student engagement.