Abstract
Context: Academic skills provision in UK higher education offers students an extra layer of support in their studies outside of classroom teaching and learning. This support can assist students develop skills in areas such as academic writing, critical evaluation and research, among many others. The aims of this study were to explore which kinds of difficulties and anxieties impede students' academic skills development, to investigate the processes involved in skills support, and to design a support framework which could assist staff as they help students transition into more confident, independent learners. Mobile app innovation was incorporated for additional learning provision running parallel to the support sessions.
Methodology: Participatory Action Research was carried out over two cycles in 2021, with 17 home and overseas participants, who were deemed 'co-creators' of new knowledge. Data collection included an entry and exit survey, contemporaneous logs of support sessions, interviews, and analytics from participants' mobile app usage. An educational smartphone app was developed for this study which contained academic resources such as how-to videos, referencing examples, and wellbeing features.
Findings: Findings indicate that targeted, personalised academic skills support outside of classroom teaching is a beneficial and appreciated provision for those students who seek out support and whom might be struggling. Many participants expressed feelings of high anxiety before accessing support, for differing reasons. These were replaced over the course of individualised support sessions with elevated levels of academic awareness and performance. Transitions into more confident learners were observed in a majority of the participants, who predominantly agreed that the support was complemented by the mobile academic resources available to them.
Contribution to knowledge: This thesis contributes to knowledge by connecting key concepts in the design of a new Academic Skills Transition Framework. These concepts draw on and develop Yeager and Walton's (2011) work on social psychological interventions, which enable a more targeted, personalised approach to academic skills provision. This approach was shown to facilitate in the participants a stronger sense of belonging to the academic environment, boosted affect and levels of self-affirmation, and meliorated responses to the academic challenges facing them in their studies. Additional support via smartphone app features could be further developed to assist students in terms of mobility and learning independence.