Barrett, Sheila May; (2023) Perceptions of Listening in the Personal Tutor Relationship during a Move to Online Relationships in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Final Submission BAR15144669 SheilaBarrett EdD Main Thesis.pdf - Other Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 December 2024. Download (1MB)

Abstract

This qualitative study critically examines how three tutors and nine tutees from three different universities, in departments of nursing, family therapy, and education talked about listening in their personal tutoring relationships. The research took place during the COVID-19 pandemic when the UK government “stay at home” directives brought about an acceleration of working and studying from home, and personal tutoring meetings were moved online. Interviews for this study were conducted online, mirroring the new online experiences of the participants. Informed by Bhaskar’s critical realist concept of a stratified reality and the four planar model of social being (Bhaskar,1998), and using Archer’s ideas about structure, agency and reflexivity (Archer, 2003), this research analysed the perceptions and experiences of listening in the personal tutor relationship, both online and face to face. It explored the influence that the multilevel relationships that make up the experience of HE has on the process of listening within the personal tutor relationship. The findings from this study identified how relationships at all four levels of social being impacted listening. Relationships with the material world brought to the fore the effects and changes when listening was moved online, highlighting the way in which boundaries were created to separate work and home. Listening behaviours in the interpersonal realm between tutor and tutee showed some similarities between listening online and face to face, with the power differential between tutor and tutee seeming to affect the focus of listening. Institutional structures impacted listening especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more generally the tutors in this study were found to exert their agency by not listening to managerial demands that contradicted their pedagogical stances. Intrapersonally there were past, personal and professional experiences that oriented current listening, alongside individual and group characteristics such as dyslexia and gender. The findings support the idea that Critical Realism is a framework through which theories and research from multiple disciplines can be brought together to inform listening in the personal tutor relationship thus becoming an interdisciplinary field of study.

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