Information for students

Participant Information Sheet for students

Study title:

Specialist mentoring and autistic students in higher education: Exploring engagement, experience and outcomes.

Invitation:

You are being invited to take part in a doctoral study. Before you decide whether or not to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.

What is the purpose of the study?

The purpose of the study is to explore the understanding of, and impact of specialist mentoring.  Specialist mentoring is a type of support offered to students through the disabled student allowance. Once the impact is understood, this can be used to better inform service provision in the future at both Oxford Brookes and more widely.

Why have I been invited to participate?

All undergraduate students on 3 year or equivalent courses who are engaging in, are on the waiting list for, or have an interest in specialist mentoring are invited to participate.  

This study focuses on autistic students receiving specialist mentoring, with comparison groups of students receiving specialist mentoring for mental health conditions.  Including a comparison group helps us to understand if impacts are specific to autistic students, or more general to all students who receive specialist mentoring.

Do I have to take part?

It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part in this research study. If you do decide to take part, then along with this information sheet, you will be given a privacy notice that will explain how your data will be collected and used, and be asked to give your consent. If you decide to take part, you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason. Any data that you give anonymously will not be able to be withdrawn. Any other data collected from you can be withdrawn, up to the point of analysis by contacting the research team.

Whether or not you choose to take part in this study will have no impact on your marks, assessments or future studies at university. It will also have no impact on your future use of the specialist mentoring service or your position on the waiting list if you are waiting for specialist mentoring. 

What will happen to me if I take part?

This study includes autistic students and comparison groups - students with mental health conditions, those awaiting mentoring, and those not receiving mentoring - to better understand specialist mentoring.

You are invited to complete questionnaires on how you feel about university.  It is expected that the completion of the questions should take about 10 minutes.   

In order to ensure your responses are not directly identifiable, your student number will be used to assign a unique participant code to your responses. This code replaces your student number in the research data.  The link between your student number and participant code will be stored securely and separately—on paper, in a locked cabinet in the researcher's office. Only the research team will have access to this information. Once coded, your student number will be removed from the dataset. These measures ensure your data remains confidential and cannot be linked to you by anyone outside the research team. As the research team retains a secure link between your student number and code, your data is pseudonymised rather than fully anonymised.

Your student number will also be used by the supervisory team to access your Grade Point Average (GPA) at the start and end of the academic year. By comparing different groups of students, we aim to better understand the possible effects of specialist mentoring. This will help assess how mentoring may relate to academic progress. Your GPA will be linked only to your participant code to protect your identity.

If you provide a contact email address at the end of the questionnaires, you’ll be invited to complete the questionnaires again, up to a maximum of three times. Participation at each timepoint is optional.  You do not have to complete all the questionnaires to take part.  As this study aims to understand changes over time, you may be invited to take part again in the future. Your unique participant code will be used to link your responses over time.

What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?

Taking part will involve a time contribution.  It is estimated that the completion of all the questionnaires in full will take about 15 minutes on each occasion.  If you construct an image and provide a caption will require a larger time commitment dependent on your chosen image construction media and personal preference.  Attendance at the discussion will take no more than an hour at each stage.

Support is available through the Student Space website which is run by the charity Student Minds and can be found at https://studentspace.org.uk/.  Alternatively, support can be found by texting the SHOUT service by texting ‘shout’ to 85258.  The National Autistic Society have an online support community for autistic people which can be found here: https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/community.  Oxford Brookes also has a counselling service which is open to all students with details available at https://www.brookes.ac.uk/students/counselling. 

Taking part in this research is entirely voluntary and will have no impact on your specialist mentoring provision or your position on the specialist mentoring waiting list if applicable. 

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

You will be able to reflect on your experiences of mentoring and have the potential to use this to begin a discussion with your own mentor regarding your personal needs.  

The overall aim of the study is to better understand the impact of specialist mentoring so as to improve service provision and delivery on a national scale for others.

As tokens of thanks, you will be able to opt into a draw to receive a shopping voucher for £20 after each time that you complete the questionnaires. 

Will what I say in this study be kept confidential?

You are not required to include your name at any stage of the study. If you contact the researcher directly via email, your name may be visible in the email system, but it will not be linked to your research data. 

You will be asked to provide your student number so the research team can access your GPA through university records. Your student number will also be used to track your questionnaire responses over time. However, all data will be linked only to a participant code, not to your student number or name. This allows the researcher to observe changes over time while protecting your identity. As such, the data is pseudonymised, not fully anonymous.

If you opt to provide an email address to allow for follow up, this will be used to invite you to complete stages of the research. Your email address will be stored separately to your research data  and will only be used to contact you about future parts of this study.  No other direct identifying data (such as your name) will be collected.

All questionnaire responses and related data will be pseudonymised—linked only to a participant code, not to your name or student number. These measures are in place to protect your identity throughout the study.

Anonymised transcripts free-text responses may be shared publicly for future research. This could include use in computer-assisted or AI-based analysis to help identify themes or patterns. No personal information will be included, and all data will be carefully anonymised.

All information collected about individuals will be kept strictly confidential subject to legal limitations  where there is a legal compulsion to disclose information (e.g. through a court order), or where disclosure is necessary in the public interest, such as to prevent a serious crime or to protect individuals from serious harm.

Data will be stored in Google Drive, for which the university has a contract.  Any devices temporarily storing data will be password protected, whilst any data files will be encrypted.

Data generated by the study will be retained in accordance with the University's policy on Academic Integrity. Data generated during the research will be kept securely in paper or electronic form for a period of ten years after the completion of a research project. Following study completion, anonymised or pseudonymised data may be deposited in a secure research repository, in accordance with university policies and participant consent.

What should I do if I want to take part?

To take part, please access the website at:  https://sites.google.com/brookes.ac.uk/frames/take-part-here/i-am-a-student

There are a maximum number of participant places. Once this number has been reached, recruitment will close. 

What will happen to the results of the research study?

Findings and quotations included in the researcher’s PhD thesis or publications will be fully anonymised, with no personally identifying information included.  They will likely be included in journal articles, conferences papers and presentations.  The research will be made available digitally and in an online archive following the completion of my degree.  While discussion data will be anonymised, pseudonyms may be used in write-ups to aid narrative clarity.

Anonymised free-text responses may be shared in trusted research data repositories or used for computer-assisted analyses or AI-based analysis tools to help identify patterns or themes across large sets of qualitative data. These will contain no identifying information, and every effort will be made to ensure complete anonymisation before public sharing or use in future research.

Please note: Publications such as journal articles, books, theses or dissertations are increasingly made available in digital repositories, and will typically be freely available online. The researcher will take particular care to ensure all personal details are fully anonymised.

Who is organising and funding the research?

I am conducting this research as a student at Oxford Brookes University in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Public Health.  A small portion of my university fees are being paid by my employers, Student Support Services at Oxford Brookes University.

Who has reviewed the study?

This research has been reviewed by the University Research Ethics Committee, Oxford Brookes University, UREC registration number 251918.

Contact for Further Information:

Supervisors: Prof Louise Taylor can be contacted at louise.e.taylor@brookes.ac.uk.

Prof Luci Wiggs can be contacted at lwiggs@brookes.ac.uk

Dr Hossein Sadeghi Movahed can be contacted at h.sadeghi-movahed@brookes.ac.uk

If you have any concerns about the way in which the study has been conducted, you should contact the Chair of the University Research Ethics Committee on ethics@brookes.ac.uk.

Thank you

Thank you for taking time to read this information sheet.

Student questionnaire PIS. Version 2. October 2025