Guide for Educators

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The Toolkit

These pages contain brief information to run the workshop - for more details please see the official Advance HE publication 'Balancing students' identities as learners and consumers

balancing students' identities as learners and consumers toolkit by Advance HE

Testimonials

This is a really well-designed workshop - even in an online format the students in my group were very engaged and the questions sparked excellent group discussions. Several students reported never thinking about university study in this way before. Others said that, having taken part, they could now see the importance of self-motivated study if they wanted to do well at university (Senior Lecturer, psychology). 

"I found this workshop very useful and engaging! Thank you for running it" (1st year UG social work student)

"It enables me to get my priorities in order. I have a lot of work to do on that one" (2nd year UG psychology student) 

"It gives me insight into the way I learn, and knowing this may benefit the way I study and approach my work in the future" (1st year UG psychology student)

"It helps you understand yourself better, your motivations and perhaps even help explain why you do well or not that well in your course" (1st year UG student) 

Student Identities Workshop 

Introduction

Since students have become responsible for funding their tuition, they have been identified as ‘consumers’ of their education worldwide by governments, policy makers, universities, and some students themselves. 

Research grounded in educational and social psychology, co-produced with my students, has shown that students who identify more strongly as consumers have lower quality motivation for learning (King & Bunce, 2020), less effective approaches to learning (Bunce & Bennett, 2019), identify less with other students in their discipline (Bunce et al., under review), and have lower academic attainment (Bunce, Baird, & Jones, 2017)

If we want students to be fully engaged in their education and achieve their potential, we should resist treating them as consumers and foster their identities as learners.

In this workshop, students can take a short quiz to discover the strength of their learner and consumer identities, and reflect on the research by considering some discussion questions in small groups. 

All materials needed to run the workshop can be found below. 

Materials for Running the Workshop

The word document (see below) provides detailed guidance for how to run workshop (suggested timings for 90 mins). The PowerPoint slides (see below) are for you to use and adapt in order to run the workshop. 

In brief: 


If you would like to know more about the four student types and the development of the student profiler quiz (and all of the quiz items), please scroll to the bottom of the page. 

Educator guidance for Student Identities Workshop.doc
slides to accompany student identities workshop.pptx
Student Identity Dimensions.pptx

Here is a description of each student type

Thinker: If you have a strong learner identity and weak consumer identity you are a ‘Thinker’. This is because you gain a deep level of satisfaction from studying and enjoy finding out about new ideas. You are not especially driven by career ambitions or money and do not feel entitled to a degree as a result of paying tuition fees.

Striver: If you have a strong learner identity and strong consumer identity you are a ‘Striver’. You enjoy studying your subject but tend to be focused on learning material that is perceived as relevant for a specific career goal. 

Customer: If you have weak learner identity and strong consumer identity you are a 'Customer’. This is because you view your degree more as a financial investment or training for a specific career, than as an opportunity to understand a subject because it is interesting in its own right. You expect to receive good grades but for minimal effort. 

Undecided: If you have a weak learner identity and weak consumer identity you are 'Undecided’. This is because you do not seem particularly engaged with your university or learning at a substantial level. Perhaps you are not sure whether university is the right place for you at this time, and perhaps your chosen subject of study is not appropriate at the moment.

Your feedback, please

To improve this resource and measure its impact on you and your students, please answer some quick (less than 3 minutes) feedback questions in the form below.

Development of the Quiz and Quiz Content


Learner identity is measured using statements from The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ, Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993). This questionnaire is in two parts - we have used the first part which measures motivation orientations (the second part measures different learning strategies).

The authors describe the motivation part as based on a social-cognitive model of motivation that proposes three general motivational constructs: expectancy, value, and affect.  Expectancy refers to students' beliefs that they can accomplish a task, value focuses on the reasons why students engage in an academic task, and affect refers to emotions as assessed through test anxiety. We excluded the affect subscale from our measure of learner identity  because it taps specific worry about taking exams. We adapted the wording of some of the items to make them suitable for this context. Each item is answered on a 7 point scale where 1 = not at all true of you and 7 = very true of you. 

Example expectancy items: 

Example value items


Consumer identity is measured using statements from the customer orientation scale by Saunders (2015). Items are answered on a scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree,  for example


Full list of quiz items:

Consumer Identity (from Saunders, 2015)

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements on a scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) (3 = Neither Agree or Disagree)

The main purpose of my university education should be maximizing my ability to earn money

I will only take a course in something that will help me earn a lot of money

If I cannot earn a lot of money after I graduate, I will have wasted my time at my institution

It is more important for me to have a high paying career than one I really like

Because I will have paid to attend my institution, it will owe me a degree

Developing my critical thinking skills is only important if it helps me with my career

For me, it is more important to get a good grade in a course than it is to learn the material

While at my institution I am going to try to take the easiest courses possible

For the most part, education is something I receive, not something I create

If I could get a well-paying job without going to university, I would not be here

I only want to learn things in my courses that will help me in my future career

If I cannot get a good job after I graduate, I should be able to have some of my tuition fees refunded

For me, university is more of a place to get training for a specific career than to gain a general education

Concerning my institution, I think of myself primarily as a customer

As long as I complete all of my assignments I deserve a good grade in a course

It is part of my tutors’ job to make sure I pass my courses

I think of my university education as a product I am purchasing

My tutors should round up my final course grade one or two points if I am close to the next grade boundary


Learner Identity 

Motivation Subscales from MSLQ for Expectancy and Value (original scale wording) 

If you think the statement is very true of you, choose 7; if a statement is not at all true of you, choose 1. If the statement is more or less true of you, find the number between 1 and 7 that best describes you.  

Expectancy Items (two subscales)

Control of Learning Beliefs

2. If I study in appropriate ways, then I will be able to learn the material in this course.

9. It is my own fault if I don't learn the material in this course.

18. If I try hard enough, then I will understand the course material

25. If I don't understand the course material, it is because I didn't try hard enough.

Self-Efficacy for Learning & Performance

5. I believe I will receive an excellent grade in this class.

6. I'm certain I can understand the most difficult material presented in the readings for this course.

12. I'm confident I can learn the basic concepts taught in this course.

15. I'm confident I can understand the most complex material presented by the instructor in this course.

20. I'm confident I can do an excellent job on the assignments and tests in this course.

21. I expect to do well in this class.

29. I'm certain I can master the skills being taught in this class.

31. Considering the difficulty of this course, the teacher, and my skills, I think I will do well in this class.

Value items (three sub-scales)

Intrinsic Goal Orientation

1. In a class like this, I prefer course material that really challenges me so I can learn new things.

16. In a class like this, I prefer course material that arouses my curiosity, even if it is difficult to learn.

22. The most satisfying thing for me in this course is trying to understand the content as thoroughly as possible.

24. When I have the opportunity in this class, I choose course assignments that I can learn from even if they don't guarantee a good grade.

Task Value

4. I think I will be able to use what I learn in this course in other courses.

10. It is important for me to learn the course material in this class.

17. I am very interested in the content area of this course.

23. I think the course material in this class is useful for me to learn.

26. I like the subject matter of this course.

27. Understanding the subject matter of this course is very important to me.