Author: Rebekah Guo
Bibliography
Alvesson, M. (2012) Interviews: A Critical Guide. London: SAGE Publications.
Anyan, F. (2013) ‘The influence of power shifts in data collection and analysis stages: A focus on qualitative research interviews’, The Qualitative Report, 18(18), pp. 1–9.
BERA (2024) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. 5th edn. London: British Educational Research Association. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-2024 (Accessed: 1 October 2025).
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2017) ‘Thematic analysis’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), pp. 297–298.
CAST (2024) CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Available at: https://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 16 January 2026).
Cazden, C.B. (2012) ‘A framework for social justice in education’, International Journal of Educational Psychology, 1(3), pp. 178–198. doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.11.
Dahl, H.M., Stoltz, P. and Willig, R. (2004) ‘Recognition, redistribution and representation in capitalist global society: An interview with Nancy Fraser’, Acta Sociologica, 47(4), pp. 373–382. doi:10.1177/0001699304048671.
Hartmann, E. (2015) ‘Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and learners with severe support needs’, International Journal of Whole Schooling, 11(1), pp. 54–67.
Holstein, J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (1995) The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Irvine, A., Drew, P. and Sainsbury, R. (2013) ‘“Am I not answering your questions properly?” Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews’, Qualitative Research, 13(1), pp. 87–106. doi:10.1177/1468794112439086.
Jordan, B. and Henderson, A. (1995) ‘Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice’, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), pp. 39–103.
Martin, N., Wray, M., James, A., Draffan, E.A., Krupa, J. and Turner, P. (2019) Implementing Inclusive Teaching and Learning in UK Higher Education – Utilising Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a Route to Excellence. Society for Research into Higher Education.
Odeniyi, V. (n.d.) Reimagining Conversations. London: University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/ual-decolonising-arts-institute/publications-and-podcasts/reimagining-conversations (Accessed: 1 October 2025).
Pauwels, L. (2019) ‘Visual elicitation in interviews’, SAGE Research Methods Foundations. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi:10.4135/9781526421036846496.
Pearson, H. and Boskovich, L. (2019) ‘Problematizing disability disclosure in higher education…’, Disability Studies Quarterly, 39(1).
Power, S. (2012) ‘From redistribution to recognition to representation: social injustice and the changing politics of education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 10(4). doi:10.1080/14767724.2012.735154.
Sayrs, L. (1998) ‘InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing (Steinar Kvale)… [book review]’, American Journal of Evaluation, volume(19), pp. 267-270
Schelly, C.L., Davies, P.L. and Spooner, C.L. (2011) ‘Student perceptions of faculty implementation of Universal Design for Learning’, Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 24(1), pp. 17–30.
Social Research Association (SRA) (2021) Research ethics guidance. London: Social Research Association.
AI Usage Log
Limitations & What I’d Do Next
This project represents a first Action Research cycle, not a full evaluation.
The biggest constraint was timing. I introduced the revised pre-session questionnaire towards the end of term, when fewer students were booking one-to-one Technical Resources sessions. As a result, only a small number of students engaged with the questionnaire, and only two took part in follow-up interviews. This means the findings are small-scale and situated in my own practice, rather than something I can generalise.
My dual role as Specialist Technician and researcher shaped the project in both helpful and challenging ways.
Being embedded in the work meant I could notice subtle shifts in how students arrived at sessions and how prepared they felt. At the same time, my institutional role may have influenced how students responded, especially in interviews. Some moments suggested students wanted to be supportive or reassuring, which was a reminder that power dynamics don’t disappear just because a tool is designed to be inclusive. This felt like an ongoing tension rather than something I could neatly resolve.
From an Action Research perspective, these limitations point to next steps rather than failure.
In a future cycle, I would introduce the questionnaire earlier in the academic year and use it over a longer period. This would allow patterns to emerge across different students and types of support. I’d also like to add lighter forms of feedback, such as short post-session reflections, rather than relying mainly on interviews after the fact.
This cycle has already shaped how I would refine the questionnaire itself.
Student feedback suggests that allowing more open reflection, especially around why certain aspects of learning feel difficult and could make it even more supportive.
A significant limitation that became visible relates to language preferences.
While the questionnaire made space for students to express language related needs, one-to-one Technical Resources support cannot realistically accommodate all languages. My ability to offer Mandarin support worked well for one student, but it also highlighted an unevenness: similar support wouldn’t be available for students who speak other languages. In this sense, the questionnaire can surface needs that staff are not always able to meet.
This raised questions for me about the boundaries of inclusive design.
UDL encourages flexibility and choice, but those choices are still shaped by institutional capacity, staff skills, and available resources. There is a risk that making needs visible without being able to respond to them could create frustration or disappointment.
In future cycles, I’d want to explore more equitable, system-level responses to language barriers.
This might include clearer guidance around multilingual software interfaces, shared translated resources, e.g. One possible way forward could be the creation of a shared technical terms glossary in multiple languages, or alternatives that don’t rely on spoken language, such as annotated visuals or recorded demonstrations.
Overall, this first cycle helped me see more clearly how UDL-informed design can support one-to-one technical learning, and also where individual practice meets institutional limits. Rather than closing the project, it has given me a grounded starting point for continuing to develop more inclusive and responsive support.
Research Rationale
This research is situated within my role as a Specialist Technician at London College of Fashion (LCF), where I deliver software training and provide one-to-one (1-to-1) technical and portfolio tutorial to a highly diverse student cohort. However, I have observed that many students, in particular international students and those with anxiety or specific learning differences, struggle to articulate their learning preferences or access needs during the session itself.
Our current pre-session questionnaire focuses primarily on broad static information, such as course details and session expectation. Whilst they are useful for auditing, I can’t gauge students’ support and access needs which often emerge during session. For example, students with anxiety may find it hard to concentrate in shared spaces, and students with dyslexia may struggle with live demonstrations but would benefit from pre-recorded materials.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers an appealing framework for addressing this challenge. The recent UDL Guidelines 3.0 emphasise designing learning environments that “anticipate the variability of learners” rather than relying on individual disclosure or post-hoc adjustments (CAST, 2024). As Hartmann argue barriers are not inherent in the learner, but in the inflexible design of the environment (2015). In the context of 1-to-1 Technical Resources support, this suggests that barriers may be embedded not in students’ abilities, but in how support structures are organised and communicated.
Existing research on UDL in higher education often highlights the value of proactive, student-centred design in improving engagement and satisfaction in relation to group-based teaching and curriculum design. For example, in a faculty-wide study, Schelly et al. (2011) found that students in large, undergraduate courses perceived UDL-informed practices as more inclusive and supportive, particularly when instructors demonstrated awareness of diverse learning needs. Similarly, Martin (2020), writing in a UK higher education context, argues that UDL shifts responsibility from individual students “requesting adjustments” to a wider institutional embedding of accessibility as standard practice.
Its principles should and can be actioned particularly effectively embedded within one-to-one learning contexts. In 1-to-1 Technical Resources sessions, student variability is not abstract or collective but individual, situated, and often predictable when appropriate structures are in place. This makes UDL’s emphasis on anticipatory design especially approachable at a micro-pedagogic context.
In particular, this is particularly important within the creative arts sector, where technical confidence, visual literacy, and experimentation are central to learning, yet students’ digital preparedness varies widely. At a departmental and institutional level, my research rationale aligns with LCF and UAL’s commitments to inclusive education, student wellbeing, and equitable access to learning resources.
By investigating how a UDL-informed pre-session questionnaire can support anticipatory adjustments in 1-to-1 Technical Resources sessions, this research aims to contribute to the UDL literature by repositioning the framework in a micro-pedagogic context. It seeks to demonstrate how small, low-cost pedagogical interventions can enhance preparedness, responsiveness, and student satisfaction, while reducing the emotional labour placed on students to advocate for their own access needs.
Social justice and Equity lens:
Social justice and access sit at the heart of this project. In practice, students often don’t arrive at 1-to-1 technical support with the same “capacity to access” it, the support they receive can depend on confidence, language fluency, familiarity with UK higher education norms, and whether they feel safe disclosing disability or mental health needs. Disability scholarship highlights that disclosure can involve stigma, emotional risk, and ongoing administrative labour, so systems that rely on students “speaking up” at the point of need can end up reproducing inequity rather than reducing it (Pearson and Boskovich, 2019).
To frame this as a social justice intervention, I draw on Fraser’s three-dimensional account of justice , redistribution, recognition, and representation. which has also been taken up in education research to analyse how policies and practices address economic, cultural, and political forms of injustice (Dahl, Stoltz and Willig, 2004; Power, 2012; Cazden, 2012). In this study:
Redistribution refers to making access to effective support less dependent on individual self-advocacy by normalising anticipatory adjustments
Recognition involves treating diverse learning preferences and access needs as expected learner variability rather than exceptions
Representation means creating a structured route for student voice to shape how sessions are organised. In this sense, a UDL-informed questionnaire is not only a practical tool for preparedness, but a small-scale mechanism for shifting responsibility away from students having to “prove” need and toward a more just design of support.
References:
Martin, N, Wray, M, James, A, Draffan, EA, Krupa, J and Turner, P (2019). Implementing Inclusive Teaching and Learning in UK Higher Education – Utilising Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a Route to Excellence. Society for Research into Higher Education.
CAST (2024). CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org
Schelly, C.L., Davies, P.L. and Spooner, C.L. (2011) ‘Student Perceptions of Faculty implementation of Universal Design for Learning’.
Hartmann, E. (2015). Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Learners with Severe Support Needs. International Journal of Whole Schooling, 11 (1), 54-67.
Dahl, H.M., Stoltz, P. and Willig, R. (2004) ‘Recognition, Redistribution and Representation in Capitalist Global Society: An Interview with Nancy Fraser’, Acta Sociologica, 47(4), pp. 373–382. doi:10.1177/0001699304048671.
Power, S. (2012) ‘From redistribution to recognition to representation: social injustice and the changing politics of education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 10(4). doi:10.1080/14767724.2012.735154.
Cazden, C.B. (2012) ‘A Framework for Social Justice in Education’, International Journal of Educational Psychology, 1(3), pp. 178–198. doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.11.
Pearson, H. and Boskovich, L. (2019) ‘Problematizing Disability Disclosure in Higher Education…’, Disability Studies Quarterly, 39(1).
Findings
Purpose of This Post:
This post reflects on how I worked with interview data collected as part of my Action Research Project. I focus on analytic observations and reflections that emerged from engaging with the interview interactions.
I conducted two semi-structured interviews with students who had completed the inclusive pre-session questionnaire and attended a 1-to-1 technical support session.
The focus here is not on identifying themes across participants, but on examining how meaning was produced within the interview interaction itself, particularly in relation to how students react to the pre-session questionaries.
Ethical Note on Transcript Use
- Anonymised (Student A / Student B),
- Lightly edited for clarity,
- Selected because they illustrate interactional dynamics relevant to the research focus.
Transcript Analysis Notes
Across both interviews, the questionnaire appeared to function less as an administrative tool and more as a preparatory materials that shaped how students entered the one-to-one session.
Student A repeatedly returned to feelings of reduced anxiety and increased clarity. Early in the interview, she stated that the questionnaire “helped me feel less anxious or less stressed about communicating how I feel” Interview cleaned transcript. She contrasted this with previous sessions, explaining that without the questionnaire she would have “probably sat there and let you lead.” This indicates that, without any pre-session prompts and questionnaire, student in the session assume it would be a educator-centered rather than a learner-centered session.
When prompted further, Student A described the questionnaire as something that “made me think about what I actually wanted to ask.” This reflection occurred before the tutorial itself, suggesting that engagement began in advance rather than emerging reactively during the session. She emphasised the supportive nature of the structure, repeating that “all the options were there”, and struggled to identify anything missing, suggesting that the design reduced uncertainty rather than overwhelming her with choice.
During discussion of the session itself, Student A pointed out the importance of learning modality. She noted that “rather than just talking about it, being able to see it [the live demonstration] was really helpful,” and that working directly with her own content improved understanding. By articulating this preference, the student was shaping the session towards visual and applied modes of learning, rather than abstract explanation.
Student B’s interview centred around language and efficiency. While she found the tick-box questions straightforward, the open-ended question required more thought: “writing questions always takes longer.” Notably, she framed her effort in relational terms, explaining that she felt she “should think of something to write” in order to “support this research.” This moment required reflexive attention, as it suggested a desire to be helpful rather than purely expressive.
However, the questionnaire opened space for a practical and significant adjustment. Student B explained that although she usually chooses English “out of respect for the culture here,” using her mother language for technical software was more effective. Following the session, she changed the system language to Chinese, describing it as “much easier to understand,” particularly for advanced stages where she needed to articulate complex goals clearly. She also reflected that the questionnaire helped her realise she could use alternative learning methods, such as videos or problem-solving, when booking a session was not possible.
Analysis Discussion
Taken together, these interviews suggest that the UDL-informed pre-session questionnaire supported anticipatory engagement, reduced anxiety, and enabled practical adjustments that would have been difficult to negotiate spontaneously during one-to-one sessions. Rather than simply collecting information, the questionnaire shaped how students reflected on their learning needs and how they participated in technical support, aligning with UDL’s emphasis on proactive rather than reactive design.
Both students described how completing the questionnaire in advance shifted the focus of the session itself. For Student A, this reduced uncertainty and allowed the tutorial to prioritise visual and applied learning approaches. For Student B, the questionnaire created space to discuss language preferences, leading to technical and communication adjustments that improved efficiency and clarity. These examples demonstrate how flexibility in representation, engagement, and emotional support was operationalised most effectively before the session began.
At the same time, Student B’s expressed desire to “support the research” highlights that power dynamics and perceived expectations continue to shape student responses, even within inclusive designs. While this did not diminish the usefulness of the questionnaire, it reinforces the need for reflexivity when interpreting feedback. Overall, the findings suggest that the value of the pre-session questionnaire lies in enabling preparedness, choice, and responsiveness, supporting more inclusive and effective one-to-one technical learning experiences.
Protected: Participant-facing documents
Research Methods
My Original Research Design
When I first planned this project, my intention was to evaluate a newly designed inclusive pre-session questionnaire by collecting data from several students across the Autumn term. My research design combined:
- A semi-structured interview method, guided by a flexible interview schedule.
- Thematic analysis as described by Braun & Clarke (2006, 2013), which is designed to identify patterns across multiple accounts.
My expectation was to gather a small but sufficient dataset to look for common themes around how students experience the questionnaire, how it shapes their 1-to-1 learning, and how it influences feelings of confidence, inclusion, or anxiety.
This design aligned with standard qualitative practice: semi-structured interviews allow depth and flexibility, while thematic analysis supports an inductive exploration of students’ experiences across a dataset.
Interview Schedule:
Analysis method
When the action phase began, the timing of the academic calendar became an unexpected constraint. Because my intervention launched at the end of term, very few students were booking 1-to-1 technical support. In reality, I was only able to complete one full cycle:
- 4 students completed the new pre-session questionnaire.
- 3 student attended a 1-to-1 tutorial with me.
- 2 participated in a follow-up interview.
Although I spoke with two students, the small scale of the data meant my original analytical based on thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; 2017) was not viable. Given this limited dataset, I decided not to pursue thematic analysis in its conventional form. As Braun and Clarke (2017) emphasise, thematic analysis is designed to identify patterned meaning across a dataset, rather than to support close analysis of a small number of cases. Applying this method with only two interviews would have risked overstating the analytic claims or forcing themes that were not adequately supported by the data.
Rather than forcing a method that no longer fit, I treated interviews as illustrative, case-based accounts that enabled a closer examination of how the UDL-informed questionnaire functioned in practice. My focus of analysis shifted from identifying themes across students to examining how they articulated their learning preferences and access needs, and how these articulations shaped the one-to-one interaction.
My analysis uses an interaction-focused approach. I conducted a close, reflexive reading of the interview transcripts alongside field notes from the tutorial sessions, paying attention to how meaning was produced through talk and relevant nonverbal interaction. I specifically examined points where the questionnaire seemed to influence students’ preparedness, session responsiveness, and the ways students raised or clarified their needs (Jordan and Henderson, 1995). Features such as pauses, hesitations, adequacy checks and requests for reassurance were analysed as indicators of comfort, confidence and inclusion in practice, rather than as a separate analysis of power dynamics (Jordan and Henderson, 1995).
The specific approach was informed by Kvale’s (1996) concepts of interviews as “an exchange of views” an InterView, where the interviewer (i.e., myself as a researcher) engage in an almost “therapeutic exchange” with the interviewee, co-creating meaning and curating discourse on the subject. I’ve also drawn inspiration from Holstein and Gubrium’s (1995) notion of the “active interview” — understanding the student’s behaviour as a performance of a “good participant”: agreeable, supportive, and careful not to challenge me, a common dynamic in interviews shaped by institutional roles. Irvine et al.’s (2013) discussion of adequacy checks was particularly useful for interpreting how students monitored their responses and sought confirmation during the interview. These interactional cues provided insight into whether the pre-session questionnaire helped reduce uncertainty, anxiety, or the emotional labour associated with disclosure.
Rather than aiming to produce generalisable findings, this analysis of the results remain as a situated, practice-based account of how a UDL-informed pre-session questionnaire can operate within one-to-one Technical Resources support. By focusing on process, interaction, and anticipatory adjustment, the analysis seeks to illuminate how UDL principles may be operationalised at a micro-pedagogic level to improve inclusivity, preparedness, and student experience.
Reference:
Anyan, F. (2013) ‘The influence of power shifts in data collection and analysis stages: A focus on qualitative research interviews’, The Qualitative Report, 18(18), pp. 1–9.
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2017) ‘Thematic analysis’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), pp. 297–298.
Holstein, J.A. & Gubrium, J.F. (1995) The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: https://methods.sagepub.com/book/mono/the-active-interview/toc
Sayrs, L. (1998) ‘InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing (Steinar Kvale)… [book review]’, American Journal of Evaluation, volume(19), pp. 267-270
Jordan, B. and Henderson, A. (1995) ‘Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice’, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), pp. 39–103.
Action Plan & Ethics
1. Ethical Action Plan
2. Action Research Cycle & TimeLine
Action Research Cycle:
Research Timeline:
End September -Mid December 2025
| Stage | Tasks | Approx Dates | Outputs | Status |
| Stage 1 – Reflect | Review previous pre-session questionnaires and identify barriers (anxiety, language, environment). Begin reading key sources. | 29/09/2025 – 31/10/2025 | Reflection notes on barriers; short summary of key readings for ethics or workshop submission. | Done |
| Stage 2 – Plan | Draft and refine redesigned questionnaire using UDL principles. Write interview schedule (4–6 open questions). Gain tutor feedback on both tools. | 20/10/2025-10/11/2025 | Final version of pre-session questionnaire and interview guide ready for ethical approval. | Done |
| Stage 3 – Act (Pilot Implementation) | Pilot the redesigned questionnaire with a small number of one-to-one bookings (3–5 students). | 10/11/2025 – 02/12/2025 | Completed pilot questionnaires and reflection on student interaction. | Done |
| Stage 4 – Observe (Data Collection) | Conduct semi-structured interviews with participating students. Focus on usability, accessibility, and inclusivity. Transcribe or summarise responses. | 24/11/2025 – 08/12/2025 | Interview transcripts or summaries. | Done |
| Stage 5 – Reflect / Evaluate | Reflection on student feedback and pilot outcomes. Link findings to UDL frameworks. | 01/12/2025 – 15/12/2025 | Final reflection and prepare for the presentation. | Done |
Redesigned Pre-session questionnaire: