Matthew Easterbrook is a social psychologist interested in social class, socioeconomic status, and inequality. His research aims to use social psychology to increase our understanding of, and ability to reduce, educational, economic, and political inequalities.
What I did
Since 2014, I’ve been asking students to submit blog posts as part of a portfolio assessment on my final year undergraduate module, ‘The Psychology of Inequality: From Poverty to Power’.
The module assessment is a portfolio submission which comprises short blog posts and an ‘intervention summary’. Students submit three 750-word blog posts (one formative, two summative) at intervals through the semester, written for an educated lay audience. Each post should briefly describe an issue, such as a current event, a sociopolitical issue, a story, or even a personal experience of some kind. It should then draw on one academic reference exploring relevant research, a theory or a bit of a theory, covered in the previous 3 weeks’ lecturers or associated readings, to illuminate the psychological processes that might help the reader understand or explain that issue. Students post anonymously to the user-friendly messaging software Slack (I provide them with pseudonyms). I also provide a format for them to follow which breaks down the blog posts into four paragraphs plus some top tips and some 1st and 2nd class annotated exemplars.
The first blog post is formative and I provide everyone with feedback via comments on their post in Slack. In effect, therefore, all of my feedback is for every student on the module. I also encourage them to read each other’s posts, my feedback on them, and to add constructive comments of their own. The second and third posts (which are submitted as part of the portfolio assignment), follow the same formula, but without my feedback.
The other part of the portfolio, a 1000 word ‘intervention summary’, is more traditionally academic in style. It asks students, with citations, to describe a problem related to inequality, the psychological impacts and related socio-cultural factors, and provide an idea for an intervention that might mitigate those psychological impacts.
Why I did it
I really wanted to engage my students with the process of writing something accessible, fun to write, but still rooted in the discipline. The portfolio helps develop insights into how the topic can be applied outside the psychology lab and helps to build some transferrable skills along the way.
As I explain to my students in the Assessment Information section of the module Canvas page:
“I chose the assessments because they will help you develop your ability to apply psychological theory and research to real world problems, as well as helping you develop useful and transferable writing skills that many employers now value above writing academic essays or cramming for an exam. They also allow you more flexibility and freedom to write in engaging ways for a lay audience. However, they still require a lot of careful thinking so that you can effectively get across complex ideas in an engaging, succinct, and accessible way.”
I also wanted to encourage the formation of a writing and learning community with the students in each year group and to encourage peer-to-peer learning so that they can see how other people are using the studies to interpret things in the real world.
Changes I’ve made
A couple of years ago I introduced two three-hour workshops, to add support and make sure they were really reading each other’s blogs and feedback. I wasn’t entirely confident they were going to have the desired effect, but they worked well and I’m really pleased I started them.
In the workshops, which I run with up to 50 students at a time, I ask them to work in groups and read four or five of their peers’ blogs. In the first workshop, they read my feedback too. Then, following some discussion, students work in groups to provide a new feedback comment on each of the blogs they reviewed. This way we collaboratively tease out what makes a good blog. By the end of the session, students feel much more confident in what is, to most, a new form of writing, as well as my expectations as a marker. The workshops also facilitate students receiving lots of feedback (and not just from me) and they develop their own feedback literacy along the way. I think it also helps prepare them for the intervention summary.
How it’s going
There is always a bit of trepidation at the beginning of the module, as students navigate a new format and new marking criteria. However, by the end they do tend to really enjoy the process, and I think it frees them up to write in a more personal way as well.
Also, at the very end of their degree, I think my students find it refreshing and liberating to be able to write in this style. The blogs are short, snappy and engaging, personal and about something that they find interesting. Students also see lots of organisations and companies writing in this way too. They can see that it might have value in the future, and I think those things are really important for students to appreciate.
Also, the work is quite fun to mark. I’ve read blogs that have interpreted Marge Simpson’s behaviour from the perspective of a psychological theory we covered in a lecture, and another that interpreted the behaviour of haughty Harrods customers in light of the findings of a psychological study. And, I learn a bit more about the students that are taking my module, the kind of things that they’re interested in and what they find topical.
My top tips
Finding ways to allow students to express their own voice is really important. I really encourage them to find their own voice when they’re writing and to choose a topic that they find interesting. Both aspects seem to really keep up engagement among students.
If you are introducing a new type of assessment, you do need to provide a lot of information and support to students, especially if it’s in their final year. At that point they can be focused on grades so reassuring them that it’s going to be fine and they’ll be able to do it, and do it well, is important.
Student feedback
Learning Matters heard about Matthew’s approach and encouraged him to write this case study after meeting a couple of his former students, now doctoral candidates and tutors in the School of Psychology. Here’s what they have to say:
“The blogs assessment was my favourite assessment of my degree. It pushed me to think creatively about applying theory to everyday situations, while encouraging me to consider my audience and practice explaining ideas clearly without relying on jargon. Writing in a blog style was refreshing because it let me focus more on understanding, explaining and applying the theory, rather than worrying about overly formal language.” (Camaryn Monro)
“After nearly 3 years of undergraduate studies, you start to adopt the overly formal academic tone. However, writing blog posts taught me to write concise, accessible content, a skill that is essential for the post-university world. I also found that the blog post format gave insight into how reporting for different audiences, such as policymakers and the wider public, differs. I find I remember more of the module content (now over 2 years later) than others because the short 3 blog posts allowed the contextualisation of the module content across three different topics. Additionally, reading other people’s blog posts provided the module content in an easy-to-digest language across multiple perspectives” (Yasmin Richter)