Are there conflicts or contradictions in practice where TEL/NL theory is not realized in PASS in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at The University of Manchester, a research intensive university?

Introduction

This research will looks at conflicts and contradictions between the theory of network learning and its practice as demonstrated in Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) (also known as Supplemental Instruction (SI) in the USA) in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at The University of Manchester.

While conducting several short research projects in the Faculty (Wheeler 2016, Wheeler 2016b, Wheeler 2017), it has become apparent that there is a discrepancy between the theory contained in the literature, and the practices displayed and observed in the research.

In the research project looking at the use of automated lecture capture (Wheeler 2016), there was little effort made by lecturers to engage with the captured videos as a teaching tool, in fact the research suggested that lecturers were using the videos as a substitute for engaging with students’ questions and requests for clarification.

This led to a project looking at Faculty online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) communites (Wheeler 2016b), of which all Faculty Schools are able to set-up, to see how engaged lecturers are in the online environment for their own CPD. This quantitative study showed that very few lecturers in the Faculty made use of these online community spaces, and the content presented in the spaces was mainly policy documents and example worksheets for use by students.

The last small research project changed focus by looking at a PASS scheme run by the University on a per-School basis (Wheeler 2017). The point of PASS is to provide space for students to engage in dialogue with each other to improve understanding of their subject. The results of this ethnographic study revealed that PASS in Schools was deployed either as an extension of seminar groups with heavy direction from lecturers, or with little of no input from lecturers where students are left to run and maintain PASS themselves.

In all three of the research projects conducted in the Faculty so far, the theory discussed in the literature reviews has been far removed from the practices observed. The aim of this research project is to look again at the data collected for the project assessing PASS and examine the nature of the theory/practice gap.

It is officially recognised by the leadership at Manchester that PASS has value as more than just a means of improving retention and grades, but also at improving students experience and development.

The institutional aims and objectives for PASS at Manchester are:

to enhance the quality, quantity and diversity of student learning within a discipline;

to involve students as partners in their learning experience;

to provide further opportunity for the development of intellectual and professional competencies;

to provide students with a supportive environment to assist the transition into and within higher education.

(Ody and Carey 2013, p. 296)

Manchester, in its Strategic Plan, also states its commitment to the use of technology for teaching and learning:

We will have the highest quality teaching resource, including staff and infrastructure, where we seek to remove the boundaries to learning through use of technology (The University of Manchester 2015, p. 16)

This research will contribute to the discussion on the role of TEL/NL and its implementation at Manchester, especially with regards to PASS, and recognise the conflicts and contradictions between theory and practice.

One of the theoretical benefits of PASS is its emancipatory nature through the development of critical consciousness. From the beginning, the influence of Paulo Freire, critical pedagogy and a dialogic approach to learning was explicit. Here Zerger (2008) describes the influence of Freire on SI:

The essence of the learning that takes place in SI sessions is the interaction and conversation that students share as they construct knowledge, and the informal atmosphere seeks to reproduce how students might socialise and study together outside organised academic support. (p. 26)

With this in mind, this work will examine these issues from the perspective of critical pedagogy - an attempt to support the development of critical consciousness (Freire 1974). Specifically, the work will build on discussion, of critical pedagogy by Freire (1996 and 2014), who highlight the importance of:

a dialogic approach: learning takes place through dialogue and the truth of information is made based on validity, not merely provided by an authority figure.
generative themes: topics and questions raised by students become the topics for investigation and exploration.
critical consciousness: the ability to perceive social, political, and economic oppression and to take action against the oppressive elements of society.
praxis: the power and know-how to take action against oppression while stressing the importance of liberating education.

Theoretical Framework

As the literature review suggests, the paradigm for this research is critical theory - an attempt to use education to address oppression and the unequal social stratification in society by developing a critical consciousness - an idea introduced by Paulo Freire in his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), but critical pedagogy as integrated with networked learning.

So as not to unnecessarily complicate this study, the relationship between critical pedagogy and Networked Learning needs to be clarified and integrated.

For the purposes of this study, we will use the definition of networked learning as proposed by CSALT, a research group at Lancaster University:

learning in which information and communication technology is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources
(Goodyear et al. 2004)

In an effort to integrate networked learning and critical pedagogy we should consider McConnell, Hodgson and Dirckinck-Holmfeld’s brief history of networked learning, which clearly identifies the role of critical pedagogy and a political viewpoint to collaborative learning:

The various scholars and practices associated with networked learning have an identifiable educational philosophy that has emerged out of those educational theories and approaches that can be linked to radical emancipatory and humanistic educational ideas and approaches.
(McConnell et al. 2012 p15)

This study will thus consider networked learning and critical pedagogy as being integrated, focusing on networked learning as a theoretical approach to learning with digital technology which is drawn from critical pedagogy.

When positioning networked learning, as it is considered in this study, in relation to the theory/practice gap, PASS is considered emancipatory in theory, but is not critically conceptualised in the majority of literature so not put into practice as affording emancipation.

Networked learning will guide this research influencing the choice of methodology and methods, and providing the lens through which the discussion should be viewed, to produce a conclusion that will contribute to the practice and policies of The University of Manchester regarding PASS and its emancipatory nature.

Research Questions

To understand the gap between the theory and practice in implementing PASS in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at The University of Manchester the study will use networked learning, as discussed in the Theoretical Framework, as a theoretical approach.

With this in mind, there will be one research question:

What kind of competing/conflicting discourses exist in the text?

Literature Review

PASS has been implemented by many universities around the world and has been written about extensively in the academic literature. Dawson et al (2014) produced a systematic review of literature published between 2001 and 2010 and found that participation in PASS correlated with its stated aims of higher mean grades, lower failure and withdrawal rates, and higher retention and graduation rates.

This review will look at literature to establish: the settings in which PASS has been used; supporting PASS initiatives using technology; and PASS in terms of its emancipatory nature.

The reason for choosing these themes is to establish what disciplines and types of practice PASS has an affordance for; what technology, and how that technology, has been used to support PASS; and what the literature reveals about the importance of dialogue within PASS.

Literature was identified by conducting a search on these themes in a library and Google Scholar search. The literature returned was further filtered using Cohen’s method of preview, question, read and summarise (Roth 1990).

The settings in which PASS has been used

Most of the literature looked at PASS in higher education, in either in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects (Miller et al 2012; Tariq 2005; Boyd and Paterson 2016; Ashwin 2003; Power and Dunphy 2010; Dancer et al 2015; Bushway and Flower 2002; Hakizimana and Jurgens 2013; Brittain 2013; and Reardon and Valverde 2013) or considered the impact of PASS at an institutional level (Skalicky and Caney 2010; Hensen and Shelley 2003; Congos and Schoeps 1998; Outhred and Chester 2010; Evans 2015; Couchman 2008; and Beaumont et al 2012).

On the whole, the literature assesses PASS in terms of outcomes using quantitative methods to look at attendance, grades and progression (Hensen and Shelley 2003; Tariq 2005; Congos and Schoeps 1998; Dancer et al 2005; Hakizimana and Jurgens 2013; Brittain 2013; and Bushway and Flower 2002), and qualitative methods to look at attitudes to engagement in PASS (Power and Dunphy 2010), motivation to voluntarily take part in PASS (Bushway and Flower 2002), the experience of tutors running PASS (Outhred and Chester 2010), the experience of post-graduate students participating in PASS (Boyd and Paterson 2016; Evans 2015), the experience of students deploying adult learning theories to run PASS (Reardon and Valverde 2013), and the experience of students participating in PASS online (Beaumont et al 2012).

In a study looking at the effects of PASS in a non-STEM subject - a Developmental Reading course - Dalton (2011) found there was no significant difference with regards to academic performance, retention and persistence (enrolling on subsequent courses in the subject), between cohorts of students participating in PASS and those who do not. Dalton suggests that the effects of PASS, “are diminished in Developmental Reading courses which already boast passing rates of 70% or higher” (pp. 86-87). Further, having well developed support services and a high proportion of instructors might negate possible gains from PASS.

By focusing on outcomes the literature neglects the central importance of dialogue in PASS to develop a critical consciousness. Ashwin (2003), however, using a mixed-methods approach, found that though the quantitative data showed that attending PASS improved students exam performance, the qualitative evidence suggested that students in discussion with their PASS Leaders, “took a more strategic but less meaning orientated approach to their learning” (p169). Though Ashwin’s study involved students studying Chemistry and Pure Mathematics & Statistics, both STEM subjects, they were studying at ’A’ Level, not in higher education. The more structured environment of a school or sixth-form college compared to a university, and the relative levels of maturity of ’A’ Level and undergraduate students may be significant to the effectiveness of PASS.

Technology supporting PASS

Prevalent amongst the literature about the technology that supports PASS are discussion and review papers. Dawson et al (2008) for example, reviewed a range of theoretical perspectives to support a framework for online mentoring, but to support PASS Leaders rather than participating students. Watts et al (2015) conducted a literature review on predominantly synchronous modes of communication for online PASS initiatives in higher education, and concluding that more research was required. Papers by Huang et al (2015) and Huijser et al (2008) concluded that technology could support both blended and online PASS.

A Prominent paper by Beaumont et al (2012) looked at the development of PASS as an entirely Online Peer Assisted Learning (OPAL) scheme. While OPAL was a success from a technical point of view, and students reviewed it favourably, it was in competition with, and an alternative to, the existing face-to-face PASS and did not examine the importance of dialogue or pedagogy, looking merely at the proficiency of technology to enable OPAL.

Sampaio et al (2010) report on the development of a blended peer assisted learning platform to improve learning outcomes. This is more about bringing together different teaching and learning methodologies, paradigms and tools into a single platfor. The use of technology to support peer assisted learning is just one strand amongst many.

Studies seem to be more concerned with student outcomes. Sakulwichitsintu et al (2014) used surveys and interviews to reveal a correlation between levels of participation in online PASS with assessment outcomes. Cheung et al (2014) performed a quantitative analysis of attendance records for online PASS sessions and student grades compared to those who did not attend PASS sessions.

These papers concerning the use of technology to support PASS, while assessing various technologies’ affordance for online PASS, i.e. that communication and discussion can take place, they do not enter into discussion about the importance of technology affording a dialogic approach and the development of critical consciousness.

PASS in terms of its emancipatory nature

Several papers mention aspects of critical pedagogy and its potential for emancipation. Hakizimana and Jurgens (2013) looked at post-graduate students who went beyond the institution PASS to use online discussion boards to increase dialogue amongst themselves. Though the theoretical underpinnings of this paper are based on Freire’s views on the dialogic nature of teaching and learning, the success of the discussion boards was based on outcomes, i.e. a quantitative analysis comparing enrolments, retention and pass rates of participants and non-participants.

Other literature worth mentioning are Nkosi (2013) who uses Freire’s idea of critical consciousness as a framework to understand the development of the student voice of black and ethnic minority students, and refers to PASS as one of several student support initiatives. Critical pedagogy is discussed in a monograph by Zerger (2008) on the various frameworks that PASS has adopted, specifically to enable learners to be empowered to take an active role in their education.

Rather than a simple gap in the literature that looks at the relationship of PASS to emancipation, and the affordance of technology to enable this, it seems the literature does not present a comprehensive view of the critical theoretical claims, which are then not well integrated into the mainstream literature. In response to the literature this research will move away from a focus on outcomes and look at the competing and conflicting discourses that exist between the theory of PASS and its practice.

Methodology

It is proposed to use critical discourse analysis as a methodology (Machin and Mayr, 2012) as it aligns with the theoretical framework, i.e. it can be used to give insight into any social and political inequality and disparities of power.

CDA is an interdisciplinary approach that considers language as a form of social practice and used to investigate how social power relations are established and reinforced through language use.

As a methodology, CDA advocates methods that can be used to produce insights into the way discourse reproduces or resists social and political inequality, power abuse or domination (Fairclough, 1995).

Wodak and Meyer (2009, p.23) state that CDA is strongly based on theory, but that CDA has many forms and is based on a variety of theories.

These theoretical positions and methodological objectives are:

Dispositive Analysis (DA): Come out of Foucault’s structuralist explanation of discursive phenomena but also accounts for the mediation between subject and object.
Sociaocognitive Approach (SCA): Draws on social representation theory with discourse as a communicative event based on theory of context.
Discourse Historical Approach (DHA): Focused in the field of politics, it establishes a theory of discourse linking fields of action, genres, discourses and text within a historical context.
Corpus Linguistic Approach (CLA): A quantitative, linguistic extension of CDA.
Social Actions Approach (SAA): The role of action to establish social structures.
Dialectical-Relational Approach (DRA): Focuses on social conflict to detect linguistic manifestation in discourses, in specific elements of dominance, difference and resistance.

The Dialectical-Relational Approach (DRA) would seem to be the most appropriate approach to take for this study with it’s roots in Marxist theory and an objective to detect dominance, difference and resistance. DRA states that social practice includes semiotic elements, that is, dialectically related elements of social practice, such as: productive activity; the means of production; social relations; social identities; cultural values; consciousness; and semiosis. This semiotic aspect of social order is call the “order of discourse” and alternates between a focus on structure and a focus on action.

CDA pursues emancipator objectives, confronting the problems facing the “losers” within particular forms of social life and draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985) by analysing language as shaped by the social functions it has come to serve.

Methods

Fairclough (2009) sees DRA in theoretical terms and refers to it as a methodology rather than as a method, and while he does identify four stages, they are not simply stages to follow sequentially as one would a recipe. Rather, one stage, once completed, should be referred to again in light of the other stages being completed.

With this in mind, the DRA can be formulated as four stages, further elaborated as steps:

Stage 1

Focus upon a social wrong in its semiotic aspect.

Step 1: Select a research topic which relates to or points up a social wrong.
Step2: Construct objects of research for initially identified research topics by theorising them in a transdisciplinary way.

Stage 2

Identify obstacles to addressing the social wrong.

Step 1: Analyse dialectical relation between semiosis and other social elements.
Step 2: Select texts and categories for analysis.
Step 3: Carry out analyses of texts.

Stage 3

Consider whether the social order ’needs’ the social wrong.

Stage 4

Identify possible ways past the obstacles.

(Adapted from Fairclough, 2009)

For this study, a research topic was selected that looked at the social wrong of an educational project that theoretically, from educational, sociological and political perspectives, should enable students in Higher Education to develop their critical consciousness but in practice, on the whole, does not.

The obstacles that exist enabling this social wrong is between the theory of PASS and more generally peer support, how it is expressed and disseminated, and the shortcomings of how PASS is practised.

Two texts have been selected. The first is a book chapter by Ody and Carey (2013) called “Peer Education” which appears in Owen and Dunne’s Student Engagement Handbook : Practice in Higher Education (2013). In this chapter Ody and Carey discuss the practice of peer education, the terminology used, and consider operational and logistical factors to inform future practice. This text is most significant because Ody established PASS at UoM, and the PASS at UoM experience is the basis of the chapter.

The second text is data from interviews conducted in the previous study about PASS. The interviews are with PASS Academic Leads - the people responsible for implementing PASS in their respective schools. Of the nine Schools, five of the PASS Academic Leads, in Maths, Physics, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science and Chemistry, agreed to be interviewed. The interviews lasted between twenty to thirty minutes, but the interviewees would not allow audio recordings of the interviews so the texts are contemporaneous notes made during the interviews.

The questions asked were:

What do you understand PASS to be?
How is PASS practised in your School?
What kind of students participate in PASS?
How are the topics of a PASS session decided?
Do you see PASS extending beyond the scheduled sessions?
How do students maintain contact?
What technology is used in PASS?
How extensively used is this technology?

The text will be analysed, as directed by Fairclough, by interdiscursive analysis - analysis of whitch genres, discourse and styles are drawn upon (Fairclough, 2009, p.170)) - and linguistic/semiotic analysis.

Considering whether the social order ’needs’ the social wrong, and identifying possible ways past the obstacles, will take place in the discussion.

The findings will look at the context of the texts and how they are structured. The Ody and Carey text being an academic tract with one of the authors also being the leading proponent of PASS at the UoM; and interviews with PASS Academic Leads - the people responsible for enabling PASS in the Schools.

Examining the structure of the texts will look at whether there are distinct sections dealing with a single topic, whether different discourse strands overlap and how arguments are structured: are they made consecutively or concurrently; and whether they are logical or counter factual.

Collecting and examining discursive statements will help to establish the “truths” in the text. For the purposes of this study we will take discourse to mean a “way of speaking” and study only the things said with no speculation, with “statement” being the most basic unit of things said.

Findings

Context

Two texts have been selected for this study. The first text, by Ody and Carey (2013), is part of a book about student engagement, with Ody and Carey’s chapter concerning student engagement from the perspective of peer education and PASS in particular. This is significant because Ody established PASS at UoM in 1995 and founded the National Centre for PASS at UoM in 2009. The chapter draws from the UoM experience of PASS and peer education. As a part of the University’s Professional Support Staff, rather than an academic, Ody has, nonetheless, built up considerable authority and influence, and is a prominent figure at the University with a significant public profile. She was made a National Teaching Fellow by the Higher Education Academy in 2015 (HEA 2015), one of only a few UoM employees to be made a Fellow, and was awarded an M.B.E. in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her Services to Higher Education (The Gazette 2016).

The second text is data from the previous study of PASS and consists of interviews, conducted by myself, with PASS Academic Leads - the people responsible for implementing PASS in their respective Schools. The interviews for the text were conducted as part of a previous project and were part of a wider ethnographic study that included observations, document reviews, interviews with participating students and researcher experiences of working in that environment.

From a political point of view, the study was conducted to test whether the aim of developing student critical consciousness was being realised at UoM. My suspicions, based on my experience of working with students and academics at the University for five years, was that it was not. PASS, with many of its theoretical underpinnings inherited from networked learning, presented itself as an appropriate environment to test this.

In conducting the interviews that are included in the second text, the power relationships were very much in the favour of the academics, and even the granting of interviews was totally in their gift. Four of the nine PASS Academic Leads declined to take part and those that acquiesced refused to be recorded. This refusal to be recorded should be seen in the context of academics exercising their power in reaction to the University’s lecture capture project where the recording of lectures was imposed upon them despite their reluctance.

Academics engaged with the study on the understanding that it was an exercise by the the Faculty eLearning Team to gain an understanding of PASS with a view to supporting its use of technology. My political motivations for conducting the study were not disclosed. The tone of the interviews were cordial with the pre-written questions used as a springboard to provoke discussion.

Given a choice of having the interviews conducted in their office, the eLearning office, or a neutral venue, all of the academics chose to be interviewed in their office and lasted for between twenty and thirty minutes.

Structure of the texts

The main discourse of the Ody and Carey text is the use of theory and academic references to establish the legitimacy of peer education. This discourse dominates the first half of the text and is referred to continually for the remainder of the text.

Other discourses that appear in the text are secondary to the theory discourse and appear as part of, or overlap, with it. “Discussion in peer education”, “deep learning” and “student leadership” are the next most prominent discourses and appear in passages predominantly about theory.

Two discourses that stray from this focus on theory are a passage that deals with politics, i.e. the pressures on UK Higher Education that makes peer education a topic worthy of discussion, and a little self-promotion about UoM being a leader in the field of peer education.

The arguments in the Ody and Carey text are straightforwardly structured, four of the five paragraphs following the “premise - inference - conclusion” structure. The opening paragraph laying the theoretical foundation, the second paragraph stating the political landscape, and the third paragraph commenting on the complexity of the subject area.

The fourth paragraph interrupts this structure and makes a premise about the reporting of peer education in the context of formalised intentional interactions, then refutes this in the UoM experience which, it is stated, is based on an informal and student led approach.

The fifth paragraph continues the “premise - inference - conclusion” structure, explaining the different roles of the students in peer education.

Picking out discursive statements in the text does reveal a consistent thread: advocating peer education heavily supported by theory and of great benefit to students. From beginning with stating that “peer-to-peer education is not new”, it is “becoming formalised”, but is “also becoming complex” and this text will “provide enhanced understanding” of how “inclusive of a greater number of peer learning opportunities” there are.

The cultural references in the text informs the argument being put forward. The reference to UoM establishes the context by associating the authors with a large research university and informs the argument in so much that it bolsters the authors’ credibility as experts in the field. As with any academic text Ody and Carey constantly refer to other sources to support and evidence their assertions, placing their work firmly in the academic tradition. Indeed, these evidentialities are the predominant rhetorical mechanisms present in the text. The text is largely unadorned by any other linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms.

In contrast, the text of interviews make no direct references to theory at all. Where theory is inferred, it is to comment about PASS being “by students for students”, and that participating in PASS improved grades. The dominant theme that emerges from this text is the notion of “discourse” taking place, especially in the aspect of the socialising benefits of PASS, and the ubiquitous use of Facebook by all PASS groups. It is only the interview texts that mentions the use of technology, not only Facebook, but the Blackboard VLE, Dropbox and Google Drive - technology as a means of sharing University resources.

There was no consistent structures across the interviews. The common discourses were an understanding that PASS should be student led, and that participating in PASS improved grades. There were no arguments as such being proposed except that interviewees believed that PASS was a good thing. The reasons for this belief were inconsistent but included, PASS improving grades and improving the experience of transition into higher education, mainly be providing an environment for socialisation.

Identifying discursive statements was difficult in the interview texts, but what came through was that there was “50% attendance” by students, that is, about half of students in Schools regularly attended PASS sessions, and that PASS “improved grades”. The truth for these interviewees was that attending PASS benefited students’ academic performance.

The dominant cultural reference in this text was Facebook and in this context seemed to serve the function of symbolising the distance and exclusion of the interviewees from students.

Discussion

As stated in the Methods section, this discussion will focus on whether the social order needs the social wrong of not developing students’ critical consciousness. This will be examined by looking as a series of conflicting discourses identified between the text and how they relate to networked learning as outlined in the Theoretical Framework.

Conflict 1

The dominant discourse in Text 1 (Ody and Carey) is “theory”, where the authors heavily reference academic literature in what seem to be an effort to establish the legitimacy of peer education and PASS. The discourse, with references to discussion, leadership and social development, firmly places PASS in the networked learning tradition. By contrast, in Text 2 (PASS Academic Lead interviews) the interviewees seem barely aware of the theory behind PASS other than PASS should be student led, but even then, most of the PASS schemes are shaped by the Academic Lead. The Academic Leads’ ignorance of PASS theory speaks to the maintenance of the social order of the University.

Conflict 2

“Discourse” is something in common in the texts, with “discourse” being the dominant theme to emerge from Text 2. “Discourse” is a key factor in peer education and aligns with the importance of a dialogic approach in this study’s Theoretical Framework. Where the conflict arises is that in Text 1, “discourse” is a feature of peer education and to be encouraged, in Text 2 it is something that seems to happen as a by-product of the socialising benefits of students jointing a group. The academics in Text 2 seem oblivious to the benefits of “discourse” and how it can help in the development of a critical consciousness. They seem content to continue in the social order they are used to. Students, left to their own devices seem to want to engage in “discourse” and the ubiquitous use of Facebook seems to confirm this.

Conflict 3

A “deep learning” discourse is present in Text 1. Because of the dialogic approach central to networked learning, a fundamental understanding of a topic occurs enabling students to create their own knowledge and deep learning. Apart from a recognition that students who regularly attend PASS sessions seem to get higher grades compared to those that do not, there is no recognition by the academics of Text 2 that better, deeper learning is happening. Academics seem to be content with the current social order, neither encouraging nor discouraging the development of critical consciousness that knowledge creation and deep learning are points along the path to achieving.

Conflict 4

Similarly, “student leadership” is a discourse also coming out of Text 1. This suggests the development of students as autonomous actors in the development of their own learning, which seems analogous to Freire’s idea of praxis. Again, Text 2 makes no mention of such a development, and students achieving this sort of autonomy would very much disrupt the prevailing social order the academics are accustomed to.

Conflict 5

When considering whether the social order needs the social wrong of not developing students’ critical consciousness, Ody and Carey’s (2013) short political discourse hints at an answer. They make a statement about the pressures on higher education in the UK by pointing to student focused initiatives like “personalised student experience” and “student engagement and partnership”, but then undermine this by using what might be described as an oxymoron in the discursive statement, “Peer Education is becoming formalised”. Peer Education probably should not be formalised and the fact that it is points to authoritative control being imposed, or as Freire (1972) might express it, the oppressors want to control the oppressed.

The interviews with lecturers in Text 2, with their emphasis on outcomes, seems to confirm this oppressor-oppressed dichotomy and is often seen as being between lecturers and students but, that is a too simplistic an assertion. As Giroux (2014) states in “Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education”, the role of the lecturer is to guide students to separate themselves from unconditional acceptance of the conditions of there own existence, or as Hamelink (1976) says, “becoming one’s own history”.

Possible ways past this obstacle is put forward by Ody and Carey when they advocate:

Peer Education as being inclusive of a greater number of peer learning opportunities, in particular informal, opportunistic, spontaneous and student-led interactions that are equally valuable in terms of a student developing towards their educational goals — for example, independent self-selecting study groups with no institutional structured leadership, training or support, or opportunistic peer interactions within halls of residence, student common rooms, and so on.
(Ody and Carey, 2013, p293)

This aligns very well with the emancipatory values of critical pedagogy and its dialogic approach, student generative themes, developing critical consciousness and praxis.

Compare this to the discourse of the interviews text where most of the Schools’ PASS schemes are tightly organised and controlled by the Academic PASS Lead. For example, in the Maths PASS scheme:

First year students are allocated to PASS groups based on pairing existing tutor groups. PASS groups then contain between ten and twelve students. PASS sessions run weekly and are closely aligned with the curriculum and focused on then current course modules and study skills.

This is practically the antithesis of the path advocated by Ody and Carey in Text 1 and seems to pay no heed to the development of student critical consciousness. While the discourse of Ody and Carey is rooted in theory and the development of the whole student, the Academic PASS Leads’ discourse is focused on organisation and outcomes, specifically improving grades.

Conflict 6

“Improved grades” is one of the few discourses to emerge from Test 2. The academics’ view of PASS aligns with the “banking system” idea of education where information is deposited with learners. The academics interviewed did not seem to know why attending PASS sessions improved grades other than spending more time with the subject improved students ability to score better in tests. In Text 1, better grades are achieved through discourse and self-directed learning to create one’s own knowledge. Again, the academics are working within their social order, where they are the possessors of knowledge which they alone can distribute.

The pattern emerging from the discourse in the interview text is that the PASS Academic Leads are not deploying the theory of PASS treating PASS as an extension of the taught curriculum. Further, what does not emerge from the discourse is any mention of them being aware of the theory.

The use of technology as a means to afford dialogue seems to have been neglected by the interviewees. Technology could be used to great effect to continue dialogue outside scheduled sessions, yet it is not considered. Facebook is the exception, with every PASS scheme having its own Facebook group set-up by the students themselves. By far the most active Facebook groups are those schemes that have the least input from Academic Leads.

Huang et al. (2015) concluded that PASS works best online when PASS Leaders are properly trained and where student cohorts form genuine online communities. The Ody and Carey text does make it clear, though, that an understanding of peer education theory and how it should be deployed is available in the University. It is hard to conclude other than that the prevailing social order at the University needs the social wrong of not developing students’ critical consciousness to continue as it is.

Conclusion

This study reveals competing and conflicting discourses in the object texts. The discourse of the Ody and Carey text was concerned with the theory and emancipatory nature of peer education and PASS. The discourse in the interviews with Academic PASS Leads showed little knowledge of these things and was more concerned with organising PASS as an extension of the taught curriculum so that grades were improved.

Much of the literature looks at the outcome of PASS, namely the improvement in retention and grades of the students taking part. This study contributes to the literature by looking at the discourse of complementing texts. One an academic text concerned with the theory of peer education and advocating its emancipatory nature, and the other looking at the discourse of those responsible for implementing PASS, which was concerned the outcomes of PASS with regard to improved grades. Both texts were sources from The University of Manchester. The results of this study clearly show a disconnect between the theory and the practice.

In the practice context, this study will inform future development of PASS at UoM. Specifically: improvements in the training of those responsible for implementing PASS to achieve some sort of consistency for its deployment in such a way that it is true to its theory and emancipatory nature.

Further research should look into how technology can be used as a change agent in PASS, especially as students, of their own volition, are making use of Facebook as a means of communicating and maintaining a community online.

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