Deep dive into role STEM-ByALs-ForALs programme has played in professional journey of participating ALs, and exploration of future directions for the programme

Project leader(s): Rupesh Shah

Theme: Other
Project faculties: STEM
Status: Archived
Date: July 2024 to August 2026

“I think it differs very much from a lot of the things that we can do as ALs for CPD [continuing professional development] and things. For example, I think it feels quite inclusive and as if you're actually part of something rather than being a very formal presentation. I think its cosy is a really weird way of saying it, but it feels inclusive and in the sense of being a part of a group of people rather than being something that somebody's performing for you.” (Quote from participant)

“One of the dangers we face in our educational systems is the loss of a feeling of community, not just the loss of closeness among those with whom we work and with our students, but also the loss of a feeling of connection and closeness with the world beyond the academy.” (Hooks 2003)

STEM-ByALs-ForALs is a programme of staff development that is led and supported by Associate Lecturers in STEM and is intended to serve ALs across STEM. This research was designed as a piece of developmental evaluation. Through it, we sought to understand the impact of the programme over the first 10 years of operation and to make sense of the challenges and opportunities of delivering a peer-led, community-oriented programme of educational development within a university setting.

Our scholarship involved three activities:

a survey of STEM ALs,
focus group discussions,
ongoing reflective engagement.

Our findings reveal that the programme has impact on the professional development of ALs across STEM in relation to three main areas or themes:

Learning socially
Performing practically
Growing personally

Participants across all schools in STEM described the value of a peer-led approach which offered a supportive, collegial and safe environment within which ALs could reflect on their tutoring practice and develop their identity as professionals.

The research suggests that the nature of ALs participation with the programme did not significantly affect the reported valued: those who facilitated events seemed on average to value the programme only slightly more than those who had only participated as attendees. However, it should be noted that this may also reflect the absence of data from disengaged participants, i.e. that the survey reached engaged participants whether facilitators or attendees.

The research also suggests that participants who have been ALs in STEM for between 3 and 10 years valued the programme slightly less on average than those who have been STEM ALs for less than 3 years and those who had been STEM ALs for more than 10 years.

ALs connected with four schools (Computing and Communications, Life Health and Chemical Sciences, Engineering & Innovation and Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences) tended to be most consistently positive about the value of the programme. Responses from the School of Physical Sciences and the School of Mathematics and Statistics indicated more limited value was achieved for ALs within those schools (the lower response rate from these schools could both be an indicator of this lower valuation as well as a reason to be cautious about this finding).

The research has a range of practical implications on how the programme is currently run in a relation to programme accessibility and impact monitoring.

The evaluation suggests that some ALs in STEM were not aware of the programme. This discovery led to some introspection within the programme team about the way information about the programme is shared, and to led to changes in how we communicate about the programme to raise awareness of what we do and reach those not currently aware or interested in the programme.

We suggest that the model of community-based, peer-led development (in which members of the target audience themselves are given opportunities to facilitate sessions) is an effective way of enhancing the practice of educators who might experience a distance between each other in terms of geography and discipline. Participation in the programme creates opportunities for professional educators to develop feelings of belonging, make practical teaching improvements and enhance overall wellbeing of professionals who can experience isolation.

This research resonates with research on relational public services, which argues that the psychological safety that emerges through practice-based connection can result in feelings of mattering and a sense of belonging amongst practitioners, which can aid the management of complexity in turbulent environments (O’Donnell, Lowe, Eichsteller, O’Neill 2026). This way of working can create an environment rich in feedback in which practitioners can feel some safety to experiment with their practice (Reynolds, 2024). We think that this is significant in contexts where patterns of top-down domination and control are significant barriers to innovation and change. We recommend that others working in similar situations and work with educators consider this community-focused model for enhancing the development of practice capabilities to support people to perform education as a practice of freedom (Hooks, 2003).