Today’s project meeting has focused on the data that is routinely collected by the University about students on our courses. The data we are using is all anonymised at source, so we can’t trace back to individual students, which is an important element of ensuring that we research ethically. In looking at the data that Jackie has analysed so far, we realised that one area that we don’t collect data on is in relation to students’ first language. We collect data on whether our students lived in the UK or abroad before they started their studies, ethnicity, and other demographic information such as age and gender. This is the first of the potential themes that has come out of the data, and that might be one area for a story to be developed on. We will liaise with our peer researchers when they are recruited to explore the data with them, and see what other themes they (and we!) identify. Exciting times! Watch this space for an update on recruitment of our student peer researchers…
