Small project grant application: successful
Awarded (04-May-2012): Vice Provost for Education: Professor Anthony Smith
Dr. Caroline Selai (lead applicant): UCL Institute of Neurology
Dr. Sushrut Jadhav (co-lead applicant): UCL Unit of Mental Health Sciences
Project title: Understanding inter-cultural aspects of teaching and learning.
Brief description of the project
Background: UCL prides itself on being a culturally diverse university and UCL values the rich
heritage of its multicultural staff and students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that staff and students
experience challenges to teaching and learning, particularly when they are from different cultural and
social backgrounds.
Aim: to explore, in depth, the nature of the strengths and challenges experienced by staff and
students.
Methods: phase 1 of this project has been establishment of a unique collaboration between the lead
applicant and eight collaborators, all senior members of academic staff based in a wide range of UCL
departments, spanning a number of faculties. The lead applicant and the members of this
collaborative network, each with their local expertise and contacts, will conduct semi-structured
interviews and focus groups with students and with academic and administrative staff in their
(respective) departments / faculties. Staff to be interviewed will be selected to ensure there is a
spread of gender, ethnicity and seniority. Students (n=8 / 10 per focus group) will be recruited to
ensure a mix of gender, ethnicity, UG + PG status in each faculty. Using established methods of
qualitative data collection and data analysis, we will identify key themes and categories that are
crucial to learning and teaching.
Outputs (implementation): We will devise recommendations based on our findings e.g. (i) develop
policy (ii) draft guidelines to enhance teaching and learning; (iii) deliver training workshops for staff
and students.
Why is project necessary? Although some apparently similar projects have been carried out, such
as the ‘Student Barometer’, no research has systematically explored the challenges to teaching and
learning experienced by staff and students which are particularly related to differences in cultural
and/or social backgrounds. By understanding the challenges and devising ways to help staff and
students overcome these, we will facilitate one of UCL’s core aims i.e. to be a ‘global’ university.
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Co-lead applicant:
(1) Dr. Sushrut Jadhav, UCL Mental Health Sciences Unit
Collaborators (alphabetical order):
(2) Mr. Marco Federighi, Vice-Dean (Education) of Engineering Sciences;
(3) Dr. Alasdair Gibb, Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Life Sciences UCL;
(4) Dr. Lee Grieveson, Director of the Graduate Programme in Film Studies and Chair of the Centre
for Intercultural Studies.
(5) Dr. Christine Hoffmann, Director, UCL Language Centre;
(6) Prof. Alexi Marmot, Professor of Facility and Environment Management, Vice-Dean Teaching and
Learning, Head of School, Bartlett School of Graduate Studies UCL;
(7) Dr. Mark Roberts, Department of Mathematics UCL.
(8) Dr. Kath Woolf, Academic Centre for Medical Education (ACME), UCL Medical School
Student advisor on project:
(9) Andrea Charidimou ,PhD student, Institute of Neurology.
Anticipated benefits of the project:
The outcomes of this project will potentially be of benefit all staff at UCL and all students at UCL by (i)
identifying the issues; (ii) helping to raise awareness by dissemination of the findings/results (iii)
providing training workshops based on findings (iv) generating policy that will be embedded in other
services e.g. CALT, the Cultural Consultation Service (CCS).
In the context of learning and teaching, the project will help facilitate scenario-based teaching
whereby students will develop genuine empathy by working through scenarios where they are
encouraged to put themselves in others’ shoes.
The students (n=8 / 10 per focus group) will have the opportunity to share their experiences which in
itself will help them to think critically about the issues raised by this project. As the findings are
summarised and reported back and presented in the workshops to be developed and delivered by the
lead applicants, the results will benefit a large number of students and staff throughout UCL.
Longer-term: measures of effectiveness: The data and findings from this pilot project will
eventually feed into guidelines, training workshops, etc and we will be able to measure the success or
otherwise using standardised outcome measures e.g. feedback forms and measures of staff and
student satisfaction.
End of project: measures of effectiveness: However, during the life of this 12 month project we will
seek more immediate measures of success e.g. feeding back a summary of the focus group and
interview data to participants and other key stake-holders to check our understanding.
Dissemination of the outcomes of the project outcomes:
(1) Poster / presentation at (? International / national) conference (2) publication (3) UCL Teaching
and learning conference (4) Faculty Open Days.
After the funding period:
(1) The findings from this pilot study will form the foundation for a much larger grant application (2)
The findings will be fed back to – and improve the work done by / service offered by: (i) UCL Race
Equality Group (ii) UCL Cultural Consultation Service (iii) UCL International Office (iv) the regular UCL
induction programmes for International students.
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