Role: User research, learning experience design, data collection, qualitative data analysis
Team: Swarthmore College Linguistics Department researchers
Timeline: May 2020 - May 2021
Tools: Delve, Google Workspace, Qualtrics
"I remember my first few months at college just not understanding anything. I didn't understand the way people spoke. I couldn't understand what they were conveying. I couldn't understand how to get myself understood. That was super isolating." - Student
Liberal arts colleges strive to celebrate diversity and inclusion in their education. Despite this, students do not feel like their language is welcome in the college classroom. Feeling insecure about language is a universal experience for students.
My goal was to identify the barriers preventing students from feeling linguistically included in the college classroom. I wanted to know how we can build learning experiences that embrace students’ language as a core part of their identity and strengths.
My high-level research questions were:
We started by conducting a user survey using Qualtrics to collect preliminary data on current students’ experiences around language use in schools.
From these survey respondents, we selected 11 students to participate in user interviews to further elaborate on the language experiences they mentioned in their survey responses. What pain points were students running into?
We then pivoted to conduct another user survey in the fall, this time aiming to recruit students just starting their first semester in college. We selected 4 first-year students to serve as user case studies.
We conducted two user interviews with our 4 case study students so we could compare their responses before and after being socialized to the college environment. These students also completed a user diary study so we could track their ongoing thoughts and emotions as they were living through these educational experiences.
We conducted a qualitative thematic coding analysis of all of the data using Delve.
“It's much more difficult to convey what I said, not because of my understanding of the [math concept] or my English skills, but because it seems that people don't ponder what I said as seriously if compared to those who speak with more so-called like American or maybe white accent.” - Student
Students felt they could not bring their authentic language practices into the college classroom, or else they would be discriminated or biased against. Because they did not feel safe participating in class, students chose to find spaces outside of the classroom to participate academically.
Students felt most comfortable participating in these spaces outside of the classroom because they did not feel the external expectations of higher education language norms. They felt able to present themselves, their language, and their identity more naturally. Without feeling the burden of monitoring their language 24/7, students could focus on learning the content material.
On campus, we disseminated a pamphlet to all faculty and staff outlining students’ major pain points about class participation. We also included ways for instructors to help students feel more included in the classroom. Many faculty replied noting that they would incorporate our findings into their pedagogy to allow for more inclusive participation spaces, with one even sending me the new language policy they included in their course syllabus.
“Super helpful as I plan my syllabus for fall and shape the structure of class meetings.”
“It gives me ideas for how I might try to mitigate some of those challenges this semester. Thank you!”
“Just wanted to say ‘thank you’… It really helps to remind ourselves of what it feels like to be an outsider, and that’s harder the longer we are insiders."
We also held a teach-in about our research for both students and faculty. Instead of lecturing our participants, we made the teach-in interactive by giving them excerpts of our interview data to analyze in small groups. Participants said that they were better able to connect with our interviewed students’ quotes because they felt like they were uncovering the patterns in the data themselves.
Always listen to the learners
Most interviewed students pointed out small actions professors took that made them feel more comfortable in the classroom. Although this issue of language-based exclusion is a problem that cannot be resolved without systemic change in language norms, this feedback gave me hope – that even in seemingly unsolvable situations, there is still so much we can learn from our learners about how to improve their experience.
Click here to view my full thesis on this research.
