Thank you to those who joined us for the Reading Club on 9th July 2025. We discussed Rebecca Nash’s ‘It gives you that motivation to keep pushing on’: reflecting on the role of dialogic skills workshops on postgraduate researchers’ academic preparedness and ‘belonging’ from Issue 36.
The discussion opened with attendees sharing their experiences of supporting PGRs from within LD teams and how this can sometimes either be encouraged, discouraged or neither from management or senior leaders. We discussed this can often result in PGRs falling through the gaps in terms of academic skills support or else PGRs not feeling that centralised support services are not aimed at / for them.
Next, we agreed that the dialogic approach with PGRs was a useful one, but that this often needs to be balanced with student expectations / preferences for ‘being told what to do’ by an ‘expert’. It was also commented that the group dialogic approach taken in the workshops discussed within the paper could also be usefully translated into PAT approaches.
Finally, we all highlighted how helpful it was that Rebecca’s findings highlighted that PGRs can also experience or be impacted by the hidden curriculum, particularly regarding what it means to be, and expectations of, being a research student in higher education. This led us to share examples of our own encounters with the hidden curriculum as previous PGRs and how it often felt that you had to muddle your way through individually, with the assumption often made that as PGRs you should be familiar and confident in navigating university process and expectations.
The next Reading Club will be held on Wednesday 10th September at 5:30pm.
Please book a free ticket via the ALDinHE website or the JLDHE website. You will be invited to vote on a selection of JLDHE articles. We will then confirm the piece with the most votes. The zoom link, to access the meeting, is provided via your ticket.