Flexibility in the HE learning environment: definitions, desires and the potential of new designs of furniture to enhance it.

Author(s):

Pamela Woolner(presenting / submitting)Ulrike Thomas

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 06 B, Learning Contexts, Diverse Perspectives

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

NM-Theatre O

Chair:

Georgeta Ion

Contribution

In their review of international research evidence relating to the impact of the school environment on learning, Higgins and colleagues include the observation that, ‘Since different room arrangements serve different purposes, it is necessary for classrooms to have some degree of flexibility’ (Higgins et al., 2005: 7 and 28). Within higher education (HE), it is sometimes suggested that that flexibility is still more central, given requirements for high utilisation of space, the need for teaching and learning space to be suitable for a diversity disciplines and, increasingly, a desire for ‘innovation’ in approaches to learning.

Flexibility, however, is not a concept that is free of controversy. A flexible setting is only flexible within the boundaries of its design: a point made by the National Union of Teachers forty years ago in relation to the assumed flexibility of open plan space in British schools (NUT, 1974). There is also the issue of the balance between the flexibility provided by the physical environment and the concurrent flexibility that is therefore expected of users, both teachers and learners. Notably, working specifically within post-compulsory education, Boys contends that flexibility, as a concept to inform designing for learning, is ‘deeply flawed conceptually’ (Boys, 2011: 27) and argues that continued reference to it reflects an ‘inability to properly map learning onto space’ (Boys, 2011: 59).

This paper addresses this notion of flexibility in the HE context through presenting and reflecting on elements of a recent collaborative research and development project conducted within our university. The aim of this research was to explore students and staff experiences of the physical environment provided at Newcastle for HE learning, considering existing provision but also as a means to develop ideas for innovative spaces and usage. Our intention is to contribute understandings from a localised study to the research base within HE, which some researchers feel is lacking, specifically in relation to the learning environment (Temple, 2008), suggesting implications for institutions within and beyond Europe.

Our research questions are:

What is the existing situation, as experienced by students and teachers, of flexibility in this HE learning environment?

What are the needs and desires of users and managers of HE space?

What can new designs of furniture contribute in terms of flexibility and innovation in teaching and learning?

Method

This was collaborative research, intended to feed into university decision-making regarding the setting for learning, and benefiting from a steering group that included facilities and estate managers together with academics from across the three faculties (medicine; science and engineering; humanities and social sciences). It was therefore party to the challenges and benefits noted by Alvesson (2003) in relation to doing ‘insider’ researcher within an HE institution. A variety of methods was used to develop our understanding of the existing situation, as experienced by staff and students. These included attending a range of relevant university meetings (e.g. the Teaching and Learning Spaces sub-committee of the University’s Teaching and Learning committee; a working party of academics working with Estates to develop an innovative new space; a meeting organised by Estates to assess student views), interviewing teaching and non-teaching staff, ‘site-specific’ interviews (Duarte et al., 2015) with lecturers and a questionnaire completed by students. In addition, we investigated some concurrent development of the learning environment where Estates had installed in some seminar spaces furniture that was intended to be flexible, through being designed to be easily moveable, and therefore to support ‘innovative’ teaching practices, such as small group activities and change between activities. We consider the existing situation as experienced by teachers and learners, their suggestions and needs for improvement and the reception of innovative furniture intended to enhance flexibility. To enable a more nuanced and thoughtful understanding of relationships between physical space and usage, we use to support our analysis the framework proposed by Boys (Boys, 2011: 80-81). This framework provides three overlapping aspects to the relationship between spaces and usage: existing spatial and social practices; designed, or redesigned, learning environments; and the users' perceptions of, and engagement with, processes and spaces.

Expected Outcomes

We will present an analysis in these terms of a subset of the range of data generated by the project. This will centre on: Audio recordings, photographs and notes from site specific interviews with 12 lecturers, representing diverse disciplines that include a number of humanities, social science and professional subjects, together with science, engineering, mathematics and dentistry; Questionnaires completed by 618 students across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in a range of disciplines; Evaluation sheets left in seminar rooms with new, 'innovative' furniture, completed by students and lecturers. Our understanding will be situated within the other experiences noted above, including interviews and meetings with facilities managers and a timetabling officer. Preliminary observations from this data support the assertion of complexity regarding the concept of flexibility. It is clear that most learning environments can be flexible if that is the lecturer's intention, but aspects of space and usage, such as heavy furniture and lack of time, can constrain approaches to teaching and learning. Similarly, innovative or flexible furniture does not determine practices but can have an influence. Students' experiences and preferences are also more heterogeneous and complex than sometimes suggested, although there appears to be some agreement about the importance of basic standards. Finally, there is an inevitable tension between Estate aims of catering for all needs through flexibility and individualised desires and requirements, particularly across differing disciplines within HE. There is a danger of flexibility achieved through multi-purpose, multi-disciplinary rooms that fail to support any specific learning or teaching particularly well and betray a lack of identity of which students, from within their disciplinary cultures, are critical.

References

Alvesson, M. (2003) Methodology for close up studies – struggling with closeness and closure Higher Education 46: 167–193 Boys, J. (2011) Towards Creative Learning Spaces: Re-thinking the Architecture of Post-Compulsory Education Abingdon: Routledge. Duarte, A., Veloso, L., Marques, J. & Sebastião, J. (2015) Site specific focus groups: analysing learning spaces in situ, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(4): 381-398 Higgins, S., Hall, E., Wall, K., Woolner, P., McCaughey, C. (2005) The Impact of School Environments: A literature review. London: Design Council. NUT (England) (1974) Open Planning: A report with special reference to primary schools London: NUT (England) Temple, P. (2008) Learning spaces in higher education: an under-researched topic London Review of Education 6(3): 229–241

Author Information

Pamela Woolner (presenting / submitting)

Newcastle University, United Kingdom

Ulrike Thomas