Conference Agenda

Reflective journals (RJs) are a type of written document in which students record their thoughts, experiences, and beliefs over a period of time for the purpose of gaining self-awareness and improving their learning abilities. This tool allows students to self-observe their learning process and demonstrate reflection (Wallin & Adawi, 2018).

One of the main benefits of using RJs as an assessment tool is that it creates a supportive and safe environment for students to express their concerns and ideas, reflect on their values, experiences, and assumptions that impact their learning, and track their development over time (Minott, 2008). Additionally, research has shown that the act of reflection can influence behavior, as students evaluate their work and adjust their learning processes based on their reflections (Fabriz et al., 2014). Thus, the ability to reflect on one's own learning is a crucial skill for lifelong learning (Ryan, 2015). Consequently, promoting reflective practices among students is considered a crucial goal in higher education to effectively prepare them for future professional experiences (Adie & Tangen, 2015). While the potential of reflective practices to bring about lasting and effective changes in students' lives is widely acknowledged (Waggoner-Denton, 2018), there is still a lack of clarity regarding the dimensionality of reflection and the potential link between using reflective writing and the adoption of reflective practices in students' personal and professional lives (Griggs et al., 2018).

Furthermore, despite some previous research on the measurement and assessment of reflection and RJ writing (e.g., Kember et al., 2008), there is currently no widely accepted method for identifying and assessing reflection (Waggoner-Denton, 2018). The lack of consensus on the optimal ways of assessing reflective practices is also reflected in the limited empirical research on the dimensionality of reflective writing, particularly in higher education. In light of this, the present research aims to analyze students' RJ writing, design a reflection scheme, and create and validate a questionnaire based on the scheme to measure higher education students' perceptions of their reflective writing experiences. Moreover, this study aims to quantitatively assess the connection between perceived reflective writing skills and students' tendency to transfer these skills to their future professional and personal lives, based on their own reports. To achieve this, an exploratory sequential research design was employed, starting with qualitative data and then collecting quantitative data. This design is commonly used to identify themes, design an instrument, and subsequently test it (Creswell, 2012). In line with previous research suggesting that activities that foster deep learning, such as reflective writing, may lead to greater transferability (e.g., Griggs et al., 2018), two hypotheses were evaluated. It was expected that students' perceived reflective writing skills gained during the learning process would be positively correlated with their perceived tendency to transfer these skills to their professional lives (H1) and personal lives (H2).

Academic oracy has gained increased attention in recent years as fields such as developmental psychology, linguistics, and education, “have emphasised the importance of talk (…) and its use as both a cognitive and social tool for learning and social engagement” (Mercer et al., 2017: 51). An outcome of this growing interest is a shift towards more active learning approaches, which place demands on students in terms of speaking (Doherty et al., 2011). Studies have identified different aspects of those changes, such as lectures becoming more interactive (Roberts, 2017), seminars requiring higher levels of verbal participation (Engin, 2017), and the fact that there is often some type of assessment of oral skills (Huxham et al., 2012), which may come in the form of assessment to oral presentations (Bhati, 2012).

Research on oracy has been conducted in compulsory education (primary and secondary), notably in the UK (Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Mercer & Mannion, 2018; Michaels, et al., 2008; Alexander, 2008; Jay et al., 2017), but also in Australia (Stinson, 2015) and in other countries (Howe, 2017), which establishes a strong relationship between teaching of oracy and improved academic achievement (Heron et al., 2022). While there has been some documented transfer to higher education settings (Doherty et al. 2011; Kettle & May, 2012; Dippold et al., 2019; Heron, 2019), not enough is known about the role and function of oracy in higher education contexts, whether in Australia or internationally.

As part of my PhD research, I have been examining the ways in which curricula in three disciplinary areas at an Australian university construct and implement oracy development in and through learning and teaching and its relationship to broader issues of employability and skills. That has been done through critical analysis of relevant documentation, interviews with students and lecturers, and classroom observation.

When the conference takes place in August 2023, I will have conducted two of the three case studies of my research, so will be able to share the initial findings with the community. Having been a researcher and an undergraduate, Master’s and now PhD student in institutions across the Americas, Europe and now Australia, I understand that the concern around students’ academic oracy as a tool for learning is key to students’ experiences of higher education.

The purpose of our research is to understand how postdoctoral researchers at Dutch research universities experience their working conditions and their prospects and opportunities, in relation to their mental health and wellbeing.

When looking at the employment conditions of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs), their direct working environment (e.g. their supervisors) as well as more indirect factors such as institutional and HRM-policies, our recent studies (Van der Weijden & Teelken, 2019, 2020) revealed these have not kept up with these alternations and the demands placed on them. Consequently, postdocs are caught within a dual controversy. The first involves the lack of clarity concerning their career prospects and developments despite their highly valued work, the second regards the fact that they are specialized staff, contributing to the primary process of their employing organisation but comparatively invisible and weakly connected with the organisation they are working for. Although the postdocs’ formal position seems weak, our previous study revealed that their situation in terms of academic socialising is much stronger and active than appears at first sight, particularly due to their personal agency. (Teelken & Van der Weijden, 2019).

Given this dual controversy, we think that the postdocs’ mental health deserves further investigation. Whereas studies on the mental health of PhD-candidates and lecturers are now increasingly available, the outcomes are quite unfavourable as they demonstrate substantial stress amongst these groups, see for example the recent work by Pitt et al (2020), Ysseldyk (2019) and Van Benthem (2019). Studies concerning the mental wellbeing of postdocs are comparatively rare, the first study on the mental health of Canadian postdocs demonstrated that they face serious problems and experience severe stress, which play a role in their job satisfaction (Van Benthem et al., 2019). Therefore, purpose of our research is to understand how, in the context of labour market instability, postdoctoral researchers experience their working conditions and their prospects and opportunities, in relation to their wellbeing.

Research question: How do the postdoctoral researchers at Dutch universities consider their employment conditions and how does this affect their mental wellbeing?