How brilliant are we? Reflections on using Appreciative Action Research in higher education

Clark, S; Farquarheson, L; Collins, B; Diaz, A

Abstract

Strategies to enhance student experience and engagement typically
have been based around reactionary responses to issues raised in quantitative
surveys, such as the UK s National Student Survey (NSS). Whilst such approaches
may be effective in identifying areas for improvement, they can create adversarial
undercurrents that damage student-staff relationships. At Bournemouth University (BU), a counter-balancing injection of positivity has been provided by BU s Student Union (SUBU): students nominate staff for a You re Brilliant Award when
they feel they have experienced service excellence. Drawing on the existing SUBU
You re Brilliant Award information as a base, this research sought to understand:
1. What motivates and enables students to nominate staff for a You re Brilliant
Award and what service excellence means to them;
2. Why recipients think that they received awards;
3. What enabled recipients to perform the excellent attitudes/behaviours and
whether receiving the award changed their attitude/behaviour; and,
4. Key lessons can be derived from these excellent experiences to promote good
practice.
Appreciative Action Research (AAR) is the methodology underpinning the research. This has been chosen to highlight the lived experience of staff and students in a Higher Education (HE) environment and the approach enabled identification and dissemination of positive stories, which in turn can promote positive
change and service improvement. Narrative touch-points were used in the interviews whereby the interviewers asked participants to identify key incidents/situations that relate to brilliant staff-student interactions and selected
emotion words to describe these. The interviewer guided participants to explore
and describe the situations and the narratives were thus used to derive meaningful experiences and stories. This method involved significant skills in both interviewing and observation so all interviewers (students and staff) were briefed prior
to undertaking the research. The research builds on the practical use of AAR
which is underpinned by appreciative inquiry (Kavanagh et al, 2008; Reed, 2007;
Cooperrider et al, 2008) and has most recently been championed by Dewar and
colleagues (e.g. Dewar and Sharp, 2013) in the health sector. It also draws on Action Research as part of the organisational development field (Coghlan &
Brannick, 2014; Landry-Meyer, 1999). Appreciative Action Research has enabled
the collaborative process of research to, in itself, be a positive outcome. Thus research of this type can foster consideration of what works well, thereby promoting culture change and continuous improvement. We report results from a postresearch debrief discussion in which the AAR method itself was used to reflect on
the practice, value and challenges of Appreciative Action Research in the HE context. Therefore, this paper will both present the key findings of the research itself
about what made student-staff interactions brilliant in order to show the depth
and type of information gained from this research method and also reflect on the
use and applicability of the approach as a vehicle to improve service in the HE
context. The team will offer some key practice points for anyone who seeks to use
this approach for their research.

Citation

Clark, S., Farquarheson, L., Collins, B., & Diaz, A. How brilliant are we? Reflections on using Appreciative Action Research in higher education. Poster presented at ECRM 2015 14th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies, University of Malta

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: ECRM 2015 14th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies
• Conference Location: University of Malta
• End Date: Jun 12, 2015
• Publication Date: Jun 12, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jul 13, 2020
• Book Title: ECRM 2015 - Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies
• ISBN: 9781910810118-(print);--9781910810125-(ebook)
• Publisher URL: http://www.academic-conferences.org/download/13006/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Winner of Best Poster award at conference; Event Type : Conference