Hello and welcome to the third episode of our
new methods mini -series at the Leeds Institute
for Teaching Excellence. I'm Robert Averies and
I'm joined by three colleagues at the University
of Leeds to discuss experiences of using today's
method, listening rooms and research and scholarship.
We hope you enjoy this episode. Okay, let's start
with some... introductions then and in keeping
with our methods -based intros from previous
episodes in this episode we're asking what is
your favourite method of transport? Hi everyone
my name is Claire Taylor. I am a Disability Contact
Liaison Officer in Disability Services and my
favourite method of transport is the London Tube
because I just think it's relatively affordable.
It gets you across a massive city really efficiently,
usually. I love the smell of it. I love the sound
of it. I think it's quite clean and feels quite
safe. The only thing I would say... The only
downside I can think of is the accessibility
in terms of lift access and things like that.
People using wheelchairs or mobility problems
or pushchairs. So that's something it could improve
on. But other than that, an outstanding method
of transport, in my opinion. I wasn't expecting
such a comprehensive answer. You've clearly given
this some thought. Hi, my name's Stacey Mottishaw.
I'm an associate professor in the management
and organisations department at the university.
And my favourite method of transport, and I'm
so basic, I actually just really like driving.
So I only passed my test a few years ago. So
I'm still kind of very much in that novel sort
of phase of being able to get in the car and
go to wherever I want to go. And I love that.
I know that's probably not super sustainable,
but, you know, I try to be mindful about it.
Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Model. I'm an
academic development consultant in ODMPL. And
my favourite mode of transport is going to be
the horse. I go a bit historical, which is what
I studied during my degrees. I think it is a
bit sustainable. And then you basically have
a giant pet at the end of it all. So can't go
wrong there. That's really annoying because I
prepared some. witty responses to train, bus
and plane. I just didn't foresee the horse. So
it caught me out, Lauren. Let's kick things off
then with why we're all really here. Stacey,
could you give listeners a sense of what this
method is all about? Sure. So traditionally,
a listening room is a one to one conversation
between it was intended that it would be between
friends. So the method was kind of put together
by Emma Herron and Helen Parkin, who were both
at Sheffield Hallam University at the time. And
they wrote a paper back in 2019, talking about
listening rooms as a kind of friendship as method
sort of process. So you get. two people in a
space it could be online it could be in person
and they respond to a set of prompts and the
main kind of thing with a listening room that
makes it in my opinion that makes it different
from maybe a focus group for example is the researcher
isn't in the space so the two people having that
conversation are having it without kind of the
researcher being there to guide or kind of steer
or facilitate the conversation in any way so
those participants aren't genuinely just responding
to the prompts that they've been given. And obviously
there are benefits and downsides to that. But
yeah, very traditionally, that is what the method
would be. I've heard of iterations of it where
there's more than one person, sorry, more than
two people. Iterations where... Not usually actually
where the researcher would be present, but sometimes
the people don't necessarily know each other.
They don't necessarily have to be friends, which
sort of deviates perhaps a little bit from what
the traditional sort of listening room might
be. But yeah, fundamentally, that conversation
without that researcher. Great. Thanks, Stacey.
And I know that you've been involved in co -creating
a listening rooms talk at the University of Leeds.
drawing upon the work at sheffield and um claire
i know uh has used your your toolkit as part
of her her research so looking forward to hearing
more about that later fantastic so moving on
then lauren could you tell us a bit about um
what got you interested in using listening rooms
and how you used it in your uh light fellowship
yeah so it was actually speaking to another um
colleague claudia rogers who was doing her own
light fellowship and used this um this methodology
as well um and in listening to her talk about
it because i'd never heard about it before we
had an initial conversation um and i was really
excited about the really unique opportunity to
hear um a student voice that we often don't get
to hear without them maybe feeling like they
have to filter for a researcher or for an academic
in the room. And it also, for me, I'm a historian
by training, so it really invoked kind of similar
methodology to oral histories and the really,
really rich information we get when two people
from similar contexts are sharing similar experiences.
So I then kindly, Stacey kindly spoke with me
as well as I started on my journey to use listening
rooms. And the more I learned about it, the more
I think that kind of power dynamic element where
it really breaks down that researcher participant
power dynamic and lets your participants take
the conversations in ways that they think are
the most important rather than what you as the
researcher might think is most important to your
research. So it felt like a really authentic
methodology. And so I used it in my project,
which focused on students doing distance learning
on master's programmes and so ran virtual listening
rooms with pairs of. We tried to do it with pairs
of course mates, ended up getting one pair of
course mates, which is probably a conversation
we can pick up about the challenges of listening
rooms in a bit. But pairs of course mates rather
than friends necessarily to explore their experiences
of belonging or not belonging as they did their
study through their course at Leeds. Fantastic.
And could you tell us a bit more about how that
worked in practice in your fellowship? Yeah,
I think. Listing rooms do take a bit of logistics
to organise, especially in my case where we have
time zones and they're never actually on campus
itself. But the student participants in my project
completed a survey and then at the end of the
survey they were invited to put their name forward
to participate in a listing room. I had intentionally
hoped that they would choose a friend to discuss
with. No one chose a friend. So I ended up pairing
them by... people that were studying on the same
course, and then arranged a 75 -minute session
with them. They had a few minutes of briefing
so that they knew how the session would run,
supported by one of the light research assistants,
which, again, to further remove myself as the
researcher from that context. They were then
given kind of a sheet of prompts and some reminders
about how the listening room would run. Then
they were left to their own devices. And at the
end of that 60 minutes, the research assistant
came back, kind of checked in, made sure everything...
had gone okay um and did a bit of a debrief um
and then they went on their way and I analyzed
the transcript fantastic and how about yourself
Claire yeah um well I carried out some research
last year as part of a light fellowship involving
disabled students and how their adjustments are
implemented and how the information is shared
and I knew that I wanted to do some I was doing
I knew I was doing surveys I knew I wanted to
do something like a focus group um but because
of disabled students, what they're discussing
might be quite sensitive and I just wasn't sure
how comfortable students might feel in that kind
of group environment. And it was, I think it
was Emma in Light who suggested listening rooms
and directed me to Stacey's Toolkit, which was
just invaluable because I'd never heard of them.
I'd heard of, I know that they're kind of loosely
inspired by the Radio 4 Listening Project, which
I had heard before actually, which I used to
quite like listening to. So I knew the concept
around it and I was just really fascinated by
that and I just kind of thought this could work
really well and being able to hold them virtually
as well as in person also works really well for
disabled students, giving them the option. But
like Lauren, listening rooms, as Stacey mentioned,
are traditionally between pairs of students who
know each other and are kind of friends and they've
got that background. With the disabled students,
I kind of wanted to give them the option of choosing
someone they didn't know or being paired with
someone they didn't know. Because I didn't want
people to miss out. And actually it said that
in the toolkit that one of the kind of cons of
listening rooms is that you might be excluding
certain kind of groups of students who don't
kind of necessarily know someone who could take
part with them or want to take part with them.
And that was what I was kind of nervous about
doing because I wasn't sure how that would pan
out. Because again, disabled students talking
to another disabled student that they don't know.
They're discussing quite, I think, kind of quite
open and vulnerable and discussing quite sensitive
things. But it ended up kind of working really
well. And it was just a really good opportunity
to give the students that space to kind of talk
to each other about it. So, yeah, same as Lauren,
in the student surveys, I gave them the option
of choosing if they want to take part in a listening
room at the end of it. And I gave them the option
of whether they would like to be matched with
someone who they might not know. or they could
bring another student who could be disabled or
non -disabled. So I was really trying to broaden
it out and open it out and just give as many
people as possible the opportunity to take part.
Brilliant. And we'll be able to go into this
in much more detail shortly, but just briefly,
Stacey, what was it that got you into listening
rooms and being involved in the creation of this
toolkit? It's a good question. And it's been
quite a while now that I feel like I've been
talking about listening rooms forever. And I
apologise to anyone who's already heard me talk
about this at length. They are listening to the
podcast. I know. They've chosen. You've chosen
to be here. So for me, I got into the project.
I got into the kind of method. I'd recently taken
over a role in my faculty as a director of taught
student social mobility. And I was given a lot
of kind of quantitative numerical data. It was
quite patchy, but I was given a lot of data and
I didn't really know the sort of why behind some
of the data. So things like awarding gaps, differential
outcomes for students from underrepresented backgrounds.
And it became really apparent to me quite quickly
in that role. And it was a new role that we needed
to hear more from students directly. And around
that time, just sort of by circumstance, one
of my friends was writing up her master's dissertation.
She worked at Sheffield Hallam, so she was familiar
with the listening rooms method through that.
And she'd used it in her dissertation project.
And I was talking to her about it and I thought,
you know what, this could be really good by removing
that power dynamic of having the researcher there,
underrepresented students. who are bringing,
you know, people that they know, friends, might
feel more comfortable having kind of more open
conversations. So it seemed like a really kind
of good tool for me to get kind of what I needed,
but also giving that platform for students for
us to really understand what was important to
them. Because we made lots of assumptions in
that role, and I think we do in universities
generally. We see a lot of data. We have access
to a lot of data. And we look at it, but we make
assumptions about why things are the way that
they are. And I think it's really important that
we actually go to the people who are concerned
by that and ask them for more information. So
for me, listening rooms was a really nice tool
of doing that. We've touched on the toolkit already.
So I started talking about listening rooms and
I talked about my project. And I don't know,
I suppose somewhat in a nice way, but it was
a bit of a shame. But people were very interested
in the method. I think some people were interested
in the project as well, but a lot of people were
really interested in the method, so I talked
a lot more about that in presentations, etc.
And I was asked by probably... 25 30 different
people if I would talk to them about listening
rooms and talk to them for their projects and
so myself and some other colleagues decided that
maybe it'd be useful to put some information
together so that we've kind of got a good foundation
to sort of signpost people to not to not have
those conversations but just so that that information
was consistent cohesive and that we could all
contribute to it so that's where the toolkit
sort of came from and that is predominantly designed
for people at the University of Leeds because
that's where we were kind of writing it from
the projects that we were involved in had taken
place here and we were writing about it in that
kind of institutional context of what systems
do we use what have we got access to etc etc.
I'm conscious that some people listening to this
podcast well hopefully will be maybe considering
using qualitative methods such as listening rooms
for the first time how would you describe the
importance of removing or reducing that power
dynamic? Why is it important and why is listening
rooms, as we touched upon already, such a good
method for that? Like Stacey said, it gives the
participants a chance to surface what's important
to them in a way that I think we could all make
educated guesses. But I think for me and in my
work, the really powerful stuff comes from the
stuff you can't anticipate and the points and
the things that your participants value that
you haven't thought of. I think that's also where
it's new and exciting, that research potentially,
but really giving them the power to be in the
driver's seat in a way that I think other methodologies
provide an opportunity for, but maybe not in
such a central way as listening rooms do. Were
you surprised by anything that came up in the
listening rooms? I knew you were going to ask
me that, and before I started speaking, I was
trying to think of something. I think one thing
that surprised me was... especially thinking
about the distance learning students I was talking
to, they had a really profound sense of wanting
to be connected to Leeds as an institution. It
was almost as important to them as being connected
to their peers. And they had suggestions for
how they could feel connected to an institution
that more likely than not, they'll never. You
know, one of the participants was studying from
somewhere that I think would be about a 12 hour
flight away. And so, you know, hearing that was
not something I had thought would be particularly
important. And it turns out it actually was quite
important to the students that participated.
That's really fascinating. I definitely found
I was I was really fascinated by what the students
in the listening rooms I did talked about. So
the topic prompts were so broad. It was literally
one word for each one. And I don't know if that
was too broad. I don't know if I would change
that next time, but I think they probably have
to be a little bit. And so they talked about
a lot of stuff that wasn't related to my research,
but was just really interesting as a member of
staff in disability services, talking about things
like funding and particularly the students who
were disabled students who'd brought a non -disabled
friend and their friend was kind of, their eyes
were open to... what this their friend had like
gone through they had no idea like well I didn't
know you had to do that what really you do that
and these were really close really close friends
talking so it's just really interesting to hear
those conversations and also the students that
didn't know each other who are both disabled
in different schools like sometimes different
levels of study I did try and kind of match them
to a similar level of study um just hearing about
the other students' experience in that school
and how it differs or how it might be similar
and things that adjustments might have been put
in place for them that they didn't know that
they could have. And again, they talked just
a lot about funding, like the government funding
that disabled students can get. And I just didn't
anticipate that that would be such a hot topic
of conversation, which is really interesting.
I think it does depend a little bit as well on...
the nature of your project so if your project
is very exploratory then something like listening
rooms is so powerful because you start from a
place of curiosity and exploration and you you
allow your participants to um take those prompts
where they want to where they think it's really
important if i had a very specific set of research
questions to answer listening rooms might not
have been the right method for my project but
because i was i went into it with this mindset
of i just want to know what students think about
when I was looking at underrepresented student
perceptions of student success so we were looking
at access continuation attainment and progression
and they were the prompts that's what we used
so they were really really broad they covered
the entire student journey they weren't designed
to be really prescriptive and I didn't have really
strict research questions that I was trying to
answer so for me having listening rooms was really
powerful but I think there'd be so much scope
if you had a very specific question that you
were trying to answer that wasn't so broad I
think there's a risk with listening rooms that
you might not get your questions answered. Yeah,
so this is what I found. And I did see in the
toolkit, it said that it can be useful as that
initial kind of exploratory thing. And then you
can design your survey or whatever around that,
what comes out of it. And I definitely think
it is probably more suited to that. I don't know.
There was some really useful stuff that came
out of it. To be honest, I haven't finished analysing
the data because there's just so much of it.
And as a non -academic member of staff who's
never done data analysis. It's really daunting,
just the sheer volume of it. So it was fascinating.
I'm so glad I did it. But I think the surveys
were probably a bit more useful in terms of my
specific research project that I was doing. I've
written down two things. One is prompts and an
example of how you went about choosing the prompts
would be lovely. And also the question of an
analysis. That's obviously... Like you say, it's
a really big job, an important job. And there's
no one way of doing either of those things, I
guess. Yeah, I think I probably went a bit too
detailed in mine. They were open -ended questions.
But I think I got a bit too caught up in how
to ethically ask the most neutral question. So
they had framings like... do you agree or not
agree, rather than just like asking a question
in a more conversational tone that's really central
to the listening rooms. And I did, after doing
the first one, I did refine one further because
the participant was like, I don't actually really
know what you're asking me here, which was really
useful feedback to get midway through. But had
they not said that, that might have, you know,
been a challenge for every single subsequent
one I did. So... I think I had some questions
that I wanted to ask, but then after completing
the survey, I had a few more prompts that kind
of reflected either gaps that I saw that I kind
of wish I'd asked about in the survey or to kind
of probe themes that came out of the survey in
a bit more detail. So analysing listening rooms
data is challenging for a number of different
reasons, partly as Claire touched on already.
The volume of data that you get from listening
rooms, an hour -long conversation in response
to prompts with quite a lot of detail, it takes
up a lot of time. And when I was looking, I did
all the transcription for my project myself,
which took hours and hours and hours and hours
all by itself. So I was really, really close
to the data. I was really familiar with the data.
And what I decided to do, because I felt like
it was the right thing to do. And bearing in
mind, this was my first kind of formal research
project. So I still felt very new, lots of imposterism
about being a researcher. Am I doing research
properly? So I thought, well, I'll just I'll
do the method of analysis that was originally
intended for Listening Room. So Emma Herron and
Helen Parkin, as I mentioned, originally came
up with the Listening Room's methodology. And
they analyze listening rooms data using what
they call roundtable analysis. And there are
other papers now published on this. And roundtable
analysis is the idea that you get a group, a
small group of stakeholders to come along to
analyze the data sort of collectively. So every
member of that stakeholder group has at least
a couple of transcripts that they read. Every
transcript in the batch gets read at least by
by two people. And then you come together and
it's. quite a structured kind of conversation
the way that Emma and Helen have done it. But
you essentially come up with some themes from
the data and some kind of key findings and sort
of actions to take forward. And so I did that
for my project. It has so many benefits doing
it that way because you get the benefit of having
stakeholders who are invested. They've given
up time. So they get access to the sort of transcribed
data, which is really powerful. I think that
has much more impact than just giving someone
a report, giving them some findings that you've
generated. They can create their own kind of
meaning from that, which is really powerful.
The downside of that is you've got such a high
volume of data. doing that data justice in a
relatively short amount of time, because you
can't have stakeholders there for days and days
to analyze the data. So you maybe do it in two
or three hours. So the findings, I think, from
just Roundtable can be quite limited at first,
really powerful and a really good way of doing
it. But I think for me, it would need to be combined
with something else as well, just so that you
make sure that you're not really missing anything.
And we did do that. We did another kind of read
through. looking for kind of practical things
that we could take forward. But I would love
to go back over that data and do a more detailed
analysis, if I'm honest. I think that's a really
good point about there's not necessarily one
way of, I was about to find out, of analysing,
but also you don't have to just choose one as
well. You might have different people, students
being co -creative, involving students in analysis
as well. Absolutely. Fantastic. I had written
the roundtable analysis into my original ethics
proposal, but unfortunately ran out of time to
run it. So despite, you know, doing research
as part of my PhD, it was in the field of history,
which is very different to scholarship teaching
and learning and different to the kind of qualitative
and quantitative methods, which are much more
formalized, I think I'd say. And so part of what
I had to do was read about those methods and
try to try to understand them. And the colleague
that commissioned the fellowship that I worked
on gave me this like 900 page social research.
social science research methods volume and out
of interest they had the historical methods section
and it was four pages long it essentially amounted
to historians read identify meaning and then
they decide when they're done with their research
because they can't possibly read everything And
it kind of resonated with me from the listening
rooms, because like you were saying, Stacey,
there's so much there that at some point you
do have to stop or decide that you have enough
or decide that you can put it down and come back
to it later. So on a very, I think maybe the
opposite side of the scale, that's genuinely
what I did. I used the same skills. that I would
use to do primary historical research and read
through the transcripts, pulled out key themes,
pulled out quotes that really resonated. I think
the quotes were a really powerful kind of output
from the listening room transcripts and from
those kind of generate some key overarching themes
in that kind of exploratory way so that other
people could pick up on those themes and take
further work forward if they wanted to in those
areas. I mean, I was really daunted just by the
amount of data. And to be honest, I was just
daunted by analysing data generally. And actually,
I was daunted by doing the fellowship. And I
was daunted by the ethics room. So yeah, every
step of the way, it felt like I was learning
something new that I had no kind of prior experience
of. So Lucy Hemingway in Light helped me enormously.
And she was just kind of by my side, kind of
guiding me through the process. I used Envivo
to kind of code it. Probably not using the right
terminology even. Yeah, so, I mean, I think it
was Lucy or Emma described Envivo as like a giant
highlighter pen. And that's just what I kept
in mind. And actually, it's quite a simple concept,
really. I think it just appeared. kind of more
intimidating than perhaps it actually was once
I started doing it. I think that's often the
case because it's things that we all do in our
day -to -day work. We're always analysing stuff.
Yeah. It's just different language or different
programmes, right? Yeah, yeah. And I could do
a whole... Same person. I could do a whole podcast
around just the language, you know, even knowing
what, like, pedagogy is and what a fellowship
is. But anyway, so, yeah, that's a tangent. A
good one and a relevant one. Yeah, particularly
as... a non -academic member of staff as well
kind of you're in it feels like kind of in this
different world that's so so far removed from
your day -to -day role so yeah and I think in
vivo I got used to it I was coding on that but
I just haven't got through it all I just haven't
got through all the transcripts yet because there's
just so much of it and I think with the kind
of survey results and things just people have
kind of less space to put things it's just literally
just the layout of having these like big blocks
of writing and there's something about kind of
working through that and like having that concentration
and just sticking with it and chipping away at
it and also I think because I was seeing things
that weren't necessarily related to my research
questions I was kind of thinking this is a lot
of time that I'm spending on something and I've
got a deadline to get this project completed
so I would love to go back and kind of continue
that and and I do like the idea of a round table
and I think it's really important that these
students have given up a lot of their time to
take part in the listening room and they've really
opened up and they've been vulnerable and I just
really value the fact that they've kind of took
part in it and I kind of want something good
to come out of it or something I want other members
of staff in disability services to see what they've
written And I think you probably get a bigger
impact of that as a member of staff from actually
reading the transcripts. Like Stacey said, if
someone just gives you a report saying this is
what I found, it just doesn't have the same impact
as actually reading the words that they're saying.
You read for different things. So as much as
I am somewhat critical of the limitations of
roundtable analysis, they're also really powerful.
So one example that I've given previously when
I've talked about this is... I had a colleague
who read a set of transcripts. And bear in mind,
I'd transcribed the data. I'd read all the transcripts.
I was super familiar with the data. And he'd
read two or three transcripts. And he came out
and he said, you know, the real key thing that
I've taken away from these transcripts. OK, yeah.
Whereas he previously had always thought that
university open days were schmaltzy sort of marketing
affairs. He didn't want to go to them. He was
like, oh, I have to be an ambassador and all
like shiny and exciting. When he read through
the transcripts, bearing in mind our first topic
prompt was around admission, which also could
include open days. And he said he read around
them and he really understood then from reading
the transcripts directly the importance of a
wide variety of different staff attending open
days, being there to represent the university,
because that made underrepresented students feel
more inclusive. It made them feel seen. It made
them feel as though they would have a sense of
belonging. I never would have taken that out
of the transcript because it just wasn't something
that I would have thought. Because perhaps I
always thought I would go to open days. I don't
know. I just hadn't. I didn't have that perspective.
So his interpretation of reading that raw data
gave something different and powerful and impactful.
And he changed his practice. He goes to open
days. He attends open days and does more work
because he has that perspective. And if he'd
not spent that time reading those transcripts,
if he'd not been able to go to that meeting.
to do that work he wouldn't have had that perspective
and I wouldn't have that as a really nice example
of impact and findings because you know so for
me the power of actually reading that raw data
just like you say is you get a different interpretation
of it and that for me was the most important
thing because who am I as one researcher to be
the person that interprets the experiences of
this group of people I want to do it justice
Roundtable analysis might not be sufficient to
do it justice in terms of time and depth, but
it does add something else to it. Yeah, I think
as you say, a combination of different types
of analysis probably works best in an ideal world.
It's just time. It's really time intensive. That's
the big issue, isn't it? As is often the way
where these episodes are found, we had a list
of sort of sections and then we end up covering
it all in different... Which is actually exactly
what we want. Okay, that's good. So we've touched
upon a lot of benefits in terms of richness of
data, agency for participants. Are there any
other particular benefits that you found from
your experiences of using listening rooms? I'm
at the risk of repeating myself, but I think
just for disabled students, and I think this
would apply to lots of other groups of students,
having that variety of formats. and like online
or in person and offering that range I think
the listening rooms can work really well and
for the in -person ones I made the room really
cozy it had like lighting that they could change
and like a variety of different seats I put some
fidget toys out it's big egg timer it was just
like a really nice environment I mean they commented
on that's not just my interpretation they were
like oh this is nice it's like a plate of biscuits
and um um so I think there's some students just
really liked coming into disability services
and doing that and some students do prefer the
in -person the majority were online because there's
students who can't kind of get into campus or
i mean the students with caring responsibilities
and commute and things that would suit them so
i think that the flexibility of it was great
and i think that's what worked particularly well
in my project i think for mine it was the authenticity
that that you know We talk about them having
that space and that kind of autonomy and the
agency over what they're saying. But the authenticity,
especially, say for my project, the people did
know each other. They brought their friend and
they had their conversation. And, you know, sometimes
it was, I felt like I was listening to not a
private conversation. They knew they were being
recorded. But I would hear kind of the way that
they kind of interacted with each other was,
I just couldn't imagine them interacting with
me like that. If I was the one asking questions.
or even just talking about the prompt or having
a conversation with them, it just wouldn't have
had that depth and that flow and that sort of
vibe. Occasionally they sort of broke the fourth
wall and went, the person recording this, the
person listening to this, we're so sorry because
we've just been cackling or whatever. So, you
know, it was really authentic and it was really
nice. And there was bits where I was sort of
laughing away in the recording thinking, okay,
right, I'll do this transcription. And, you know,
because they just go off on tangents and then
they go, oh, we probably should get back to it.
Maybe that segues quite nicely into the limitations
of listening rooms. I was going to say. Because
I know, yeah, limitations of listening rooms,
the primary one for me is that they can go rogue.
And I know, Lauren, you had that experience,
didn't you? Yeah, I had a listening room where
the final transcript was about 14 pages long
and it's on page 12 where the pair went, oh,
should we talk about the prompts now? It's not
to say that there wasn't useful information in
the first kind of 12 pages of transcript, but
it was maybe a bit more generic or I had to work
a bit harder to relate it to my research. Yeah,
so it is that kind of... go rogue element which
which is I think both a blessing and a curse
because sometimes they go rogue and you you know
kind of hit gold and um you know uncover things
you never thought you would or weren't even on
your radar yeah I had to say a similar experience
in terms of the students breaking the fourth
wall and listening to the recording and hearing
them and I also just really loved hearing that
actually and just giving the participants this
space to kind of have those kind of conversations
particularly when they didn't know each other
as well and I kind of thought this is so nice
they don't even have never met each other before
this and by the end of it they were kind of like
chattering away and they kind of said oh you
know at the start I didn't think we'd be able
to fill up the time and by the end they're kind
of almost overran um so yeah so that was really
nice but the limitations are that it isn't particularly
focused all the time and it does go off in tangents
and things like that but I think that's kind
of a risk It's a worthwhile risk because the
benefits outweigh the risks of that happening.
One of the risks you mentioned earlier was who
do we exclude if they don't have a partner to
bring into that space? I know you defined who
they could bring in quite broadly. That was something
that... I really thought about and actually I
ended up offering monologues as an alternative,
whereas one student would turn up and use the
same prompts. I wouldn't be in the room as the
researcher, but they would just speak on whatever
they wanted to speak on. And when I offered that
as an alternative, I did kind of. Kind of saw
it as an alternative I should offer, but wasn't
really hopeful for what the, I guess, thinking
about myself, I feel like I could probably talk
about something for five minutes and then I'd
be like, right, that's too much. I'm done. But
the students that did it, actually, one of them
spoke for 40 minutes on their own, just reflecting
on what they thought was important in the context
of the prompts. And they were extremely rich
because, you know, as I was thinking about belonging,
obviously. The opposite of belonging is to not
belong. And those are the sorts of people that
may not have the connections that bring, you
know, have a friend to bring into the research
space. So I was really conscious that I wanted
to capture that voice. And a methodology that
I kind of saw as a needed alternative actually
turned out to be arguably more robust than the
listening room where my participants did go a
bit more rogue than I would have liked. That's
so interesting because that would never have
occurred to me to offer that. And I think I,
and that's my assumptions that they wouldn't
want to do that. Yeah. To be honest, it just
literally didn't occur to me. But so did a few.
take up on yeah so I ended up doing four monologues
in one listening room so it was actually more
which again in the context of belonging I think
could be a research finding in its own right
especially for distance learning students and
thinking about the connections um that they make
but I have to have to give Claudia Rogers a shout
out for the monologuing suggestion and because
she offered that as an alternative when um a
listening room was scheduled but one of the pair
was unwell or couldn't attend for whatever reason
and the monologue was the alternative that she
offered the participant um and so i very much
just kind of stole that idea and used it um and
it turned out to work surprisingly well yeah
that's great i guess yeah not all students would
feel comfortable doing that but just offering
it as an option is really good and i wish i'd
thought of that because there were a couple of
situations where apart like one of the pair couldn't
come and in hindsight it would have been good
to have that as an option i had a limitation
around prompts Oh, great. Yeah. So just by saying
that my prompts were probably too detailed earlier.
One of the things that I would reflect on is
because you can't be in that space to redirect
as the researcher, setting a kind of clear expectation
for your participants. So I had a lot of participants
kind of deviate and give. verbal feedback on
the modules and programs that they'd studied,
which again is useful in its own way, but kind
of deviated from the purpose of the research.
And I think some people framed it as they, you
know, they really valued participating so they
could give feedback. on their study experience
rather than the kind of broader purpose of the
research. So there's something to take away there
of kind of setting the scene for the listening
room of what it is, what it isn't, while still
allowing for all of that freedom for your participants
to take it where they want to take it. And I
think there's something to add to that, I think,
in terms of we've talked about briefing participants
beforehand, maybe having a bit of a debrief with
them afterwards. And I think actually having
the briefing is really important because it gives
you that space to sort of... Set the context,
set the scene, remind people of kind of key things
from the participant information sheet, for example,
because if they've signed that two weeks beforehand,
even if you say, you know, have a read through
it, are they taking that in? So kind of reminding
them of things like, you know, you can pause
or you can stop. You don't have to say things
that you don't feel comfortable with. But also
really importantly about the prompts as well.
Our prompts were not designed to be prescriptive.
We had a sort of word header and then we said
this might include things like. And what we found
was actually students just went through the list
of things that we'd suggested sort of one by
one. And it was only kind of at the end of the
project or not the end of the project, but at
the end of the data collection that when I was
transcribing, I was like, oh, they did that right.
If I'd have clocked that sooner, if I'd have
been in the room, I would have known that that
was happening and I could have kind of steered
it. But because I wasn't, I wasn't able to do
that. So I was like, actually, I probably would
tweak the briefing next time to be a bit more
kind of clear that. The prompts are just as a
guide. They're not, you know, you don't have
to be sticking to the kind of examples of things.
But I think briefing and debriefing is really
important. And debriefing actually with a method
like this, certainly for our project, it was
the first time. Other than the projects at Hallam,
it was the first time that I was aware of the
project, kind of the method having been used.
So we wanted a bit of debrief on kind of how
did the participants actually feel when they
were doing it? You know, was it was it a good
experience for them? Was there anything that
they found challenging? Was there anything that
they thought was particularly good? Was there
anything in the conversation that they wanted
to flag to us? And a couple of things did come
up from that where we could signpost to additional
support, which was really powerful. Yeah, I mean,
just to plug the toolkit again, because. It gives
quite a good structure to the briefing beforehand
and then the ideas for the topic prompts and
the debriefing as well. And signposting, I think
that is really important to remind students that
if anything does come up for them, then there
are other services we can signpost to if anything
distressing comes up and stuff. So I think it
is really important to have the pre -briefing.
The one afterwards as well. I think I underestimated
the importance of that. So I would, going back
in time, I'd give those as much attention as
I'd given my prompts. One of my prompts was belonging,
which obviously is a bit of a buzzword for staff
at the university. But for the students, I think
they were a bit like, so what does that actually
mean? And I was like, well, yeah, so it kind
of, and I tried to kind of explain it. So I think
it's easy to think that students will know exactly.
exactly what you mean or and i know it's meant
to be quite broad but i think just giving them
a bit of an idea about the type of things they
might go through but making clear it's not prescriptive
that's particularly important in listening rooms
because unlike interviews or focus groups you
can't clarify that during the discussion yeah
yeah exactly i think this is a very relevant
discussion to discussion we had last week when
we're talking about reflective journals and logs
and talking about the student experience as a
participant and as a co -creator as well and
what you were saying earlier about creating the
right environment Claire and getting feedback
Lauren and um treating students as sort of you
know as partners who are not just you know a
source of not you know a source of information
or data that you need to extract you know quotes
or you know you know words on a paper from but
as people who can contribute to change how did
you see the role of participants in your projects
and Do you think that from the perspective of
a participant, listening rooms are empowering
to be a part of? That's the impression that I
got from the comments from the participants after
each listening room. I think every listening
room, it was kind of almost overwhelmingly positive
feedback from the participants, which surprised
me. I honestly thought that, you know, some might
kind of enjoy it, but I was just surprised at
how... kind of gushing they were about it and
because I think students do get sent a lot of
surveys and things and ask for their kind of
input and feedback and I think this is it's having
that time to kind of talk about what's meaningful
to them and what's important to them was quite
a novel experience for them Yeah, I had one of
my prompts, one of my participants went, oh,
that's not important to me at all, but I'm going
to tell you about this instead. And I think that,
you know, no one explicitly said that to me in
order to Izzy, who was supporting as a research
assistant. I feel like that is an empowering
opportunity to say, you know, I don't actually
care about the thing that you think is important
here. Here's something that's more important.
I think that's what's really exciting about listing
rooms is the opportunity to hear that in a way
that maybe they wouldn't be able to look you
in the eye as the researcher and say, I don't
think you're right. But yeah, I think that's
a really exciting opportunity to position them
as kind of... equal to you and to some extent
as the researcher of framing what is important
about the questions you're asking going forwards
then does anyone have any plans to use listening
rooms again or any ideas about ways in which
it can be further developed lauren you're nodding
yeah i mean a very very introductory stage if
i ever did a like a A subtle type of research
project again, absolutely. I definitely use them.
In my non -light life, I work with the learning
design team and work in kind of the design thinking
space. And a lot of that, a key element of that
process is developing empathy with a range of
stakeholders. And we have spoken about listening
rooms and I have used my light research as kind
of an example of how those could work as a way
to collect stakeholder experiences and opinions.
and ideas moving away from a more traditional
focus group or from a survey or from maybe some
of those more familiar methodologies so nothing's
happened you know nothing concrete has come out
of that yet but it's definitely been something
we've discussed as a methodology that could be
really fruitful for a range of reasons. I don't
currently have any plans to use them but if the
opportunity arose I would definitely consider
them I'd perhaps just do it slightly differently.
maybe do listening rooms first to kind of scope
out kind of what the themes are before moving
on to the next stage. But I would certainly consider
it and I really enjoyed doing them and I think
it was well worth it to get through. Yeah, I
think from what you've all described, listening
rooms as a method that fits in as an exploratory
part of a wider methodology is really, I think,
exciting. It excites me. I'd love to use it in
the future at some point if I had the opportunity.
How about yourself, Stacey? um it's interesting
because I feel like I've talked about listening
rooms for years now and I feel I was maybe a
little bit listening rooms out but but I I think
it does have a space and and certainly for the
right project I was talking to someone the other
day and they were talking about their project
and I said oh I don't want to imply that I suggest
this for every single project but maybe listening
rooms would work really well because they started
much the same as yourself Claire where They wanted
to do focus groups, but the conversations could
be quite sensitive. And so I said, oh, have you
heard about listening rooms? Which was weird
because I felt like I'd not really kind of promoted
it much before that, but for a while. But I think
what we could use listening rooms for, and this
kind of goes back to the previous question about
how students kind of received it. We could use
it more as a tool for student practice. So actually
what we found in our listening rooms was that
students really valued the opportunity to sit.
and reflect and actually use that and reflect,
especially because our project looked at the
whole journey. So they could reflect on getting
into university, staying at university, achieving
their degree. And then we also asked them to
think kind of in the future as well. So I think
there's more opportunity there for us to use
it in that kind of student -led sort of tool
way. But yeah, I think there's a real opportunity
there for us to think about how to use it. not
just to harvest data from individuals, but actually
how can we use it to help students? Because I
think a few people went in our debriefs, a few
of the participants said, I've not really had
opportunity to have these kinds of conversations,
even though I'm good friends with this person.
We've not had this conversation before and I
didn't know this. And from this, I've understood
their experiences better. And maybe had I known
about this before, I could have told them about
this, this and this resource. I think actually
kind of providing that, using listening rooms
to provide that space, to provide that sort of
tool to reflect and to think about our experiences
can be really powerful. I know for one project
they were used not as a method of data collection,
but actually as a way to decompress. So people
had had these training sessions that were really
kind of emotionally. taxing, and they used listening
rooms as an opportunity for people who'd been
in the training session to actually kind of decompress,
kind of debrief with each other. And that was
really powerful as well. So again, not the way
it was intended, perhaps originally, but a really
nice way to develop the method moving forward.
This is a really nice way of tying together the
series that we've put together actually, Stacey,
because one thing that we've realised is the
applicability of methods used in, let's say,
like fellowship. to wider forms of sort of practice,
whether that's in working with students in a
teaching capacity, in learning design capacity,
in student support, all different areas, and
how you can draw inspiration from, let's say,
listening rooms or an aspect of listening rooms,
and whether you're doing a fully -fledged...
piece of research or you're using listening rooms
in their entirety or you're taking inspiration
from it and learning from some of the principles
and some of the the opportunities it provides
for reflection or for listening or for belonging
and that's an exciting thing to explore I think
going forwards so thanks everybody it's been
a great conversation today really really enjoyed
it hope you've enjoyed listening to it that's
the end of our third episode We'd really welcome
any feedback or suggestions on future episodes.
If the reception to this series is strong, we'll
do it again. If not, we might not. I'm sure it
will be because they've been three really outstanding
conversations. It's been a real pleasure to participate
in them. A reminder that we'll soon be releasing,
in a couple of weeks, a special Research Methods
Question and Answers Edition. with some members
of the light research team so do get your questions
in if you haven't already via the link in the
description thanks again for listening and see
you soon