Making meaning: An investigation into staff’s relational experience of academic development in an applied arts assessment context

ABSTRACT This article investigates the role of an academic development programme associated with the implementation of newly designed assessment criteria in the UK-based Arts University. The introduction of new assessment criteria was accompanied by a pan-university academic staff development intervention. In a small-scale qualitative study, we researched staff’s experience of meaning-making and present three interconnected themes: the relationships between attendees; their relationship with the criteria; and relational understandings within the context of expectations of academic development. We deploy Honneth’s theory of recognition and make recommendations for policy makers and academic developers to support the design of socially just academic development opportunities.


Introduction
This article reports on a small-scale qualitative study that examines the role of assessment-focused academic staff development events that supported the implementation of newly developed assessment criteria at the UK-based Arts University.In this study we deployed Honneth's theory of recognition (Holstein & Gubrium, 1997) applying this theoretical lens to our context to help us understand the relational underpinnings of academic development.This theoretical frame was important because a focus on social justice informed the design of the new criteria at the university.Social justice is a contested term, with multiple definitions of how justice can be conceptualised (Fraser & Honneth, 2003).Honneth's interdisciplinary theory of recognition considers love, respect and esteem as a way to explore relationality and we apply this within assessment-focused staff development sessions to address issues of social justice (Honneth, 2014).
Assessment shapes students' lives and 'plays a pivotal role in what we do in higher education and how we realise our goals' (McArthur, 2018, p. 1).It is a means by which a university communicates what it values (tacitly or explicitly) and is a key influencer of CONTACT Vikki Hill v.hill@arts.ac.uk student behaviour (Brown & Race, 2012).Students and staff encounter assessment in a multitude of ways, some of which are formally codified (written policies and learning outcomes) and some of which are experienced in more tacit ways (for example assessment dialogue and local assessment practices).Jan McArthur's seminal work on Assessment for social justice (McArthur, 2018) presents an in-depth analysis of what socially just assessment might look like both for students and for staff.She notes that 'assessment is frequently cited by academics as one of the hardest parts of their role, and many academics share with students a fear of failure when it comes to their assessment tasks' (McArthur, 2018, p. 115).This is further compounded by concerns about workload and time but also to processes which require the illusion of razor-sharp precision under unfavourable conditions.The need for 'robust apprenticeship' and the professionalisation of assessment (rather than a task thrown at early career academics without adequate preparation) is clear.
In the following section we position the role of assessment-focused academic development as a site to develop social justice before expanding on Honneth's theory of recognition.We then turn to the context of the Arts University, the creation of new assessment criteria and the academic development events that accompanied the roll-out of the criteria.We present our methodological approach and the three interconnected themes we constructed through our analysis: relational understandings of assessment, conceptions of assessment criteria and expectations of staff development.

Positioning academic development
Academic development is primarily described as providing a range of activities to enhance the student experience by supporting teaching and learning and assessment (Leibowitz, 2014).However, as universities have become increasingly complex, driven by quality assurance, assessment standards and performance indicators, the expanding role of academic development has become reflective of these contexts.Stensaker, 2017 labels academic development as 'cultural work' as it provides disruptive, dynamic and developmental functions within organisations.Positioned as a conduit between teaching and learning practices and organisational policy, Clegg (2009) has stated that developers exert 'considerable influence both as policy discourse and practice' (Clegg, 2009, p. 403), while Saunders and Sin (2015) place academic developers on the policy staircase as 'brokers' sending 'policy messages up and down' (p.140).Rathbun and Turner (2012) point out that the academic developer is far from neutral -they often act as a bridge between institutional policy and its enactment, in this case the development of new assessment criteria and the implementation and translation to local practice.Academic development work can highlight contested beliefs, assumptions and practices and can raise difficult conversations and troublesome knowledges.This is particularly evident when facilitating sessions on assessment as these 'activities are high-profile and are associated with being competent to judge standards in one's own discipline' (Sayigh, 2006, p. 65).
An expanded notion of academic development is further explored by Sutherland (2018) who calls on a holistic approach to consider the whole of the academic role to 'embrace the whole person, the ontologies, epistemologies, and emotions, intellectual and personal, of the academics that we support, serve, and develop ' (p.262).Recognition of the whole person is a concept that is central to art and design assessment practices.As academic developers proficient in working with signature pedagogies in art and design (Shreeve et al., 2010;Shulman, 2005) we aimed to situate the characteristics of creative education pedagogy within our research, as we enquired into how lecturers had experienced the academic development sessions and in what ways this had contributed to staff's sense of recognition and agency.In the following section we expand on our understanding of the whole self by introducing Honneth's theory of recognition.

Theory of recognition
McArthur states that 'mutual recognition is always about both self-realization and social inclusion' (McArthur, 2018, p. 55) and this practice of intersubjectivity has relevance for assessment-focused academic development that relies on meaning making through both individual and collaborative processes.Critical theorist Axel Honneth grounds 'the theoretical explanation and normative justification of intramundane social struggles for recognition upon an understanding of personal identity formation' (Zurn, 2000, p. 115).For Honneth, social justice can only be achieved through an affirmative relationship with self as this foundational aspect of social development is key in developing social consciousness.Honneth argues that identity is constructed through an assemblage of three aspects of recognition: love, respect, and esteem.
Firstly, love recognition is activated when an individual's needs are valued by another through a form of mattering (Honneth, 1997).Self-confidence develops in this ethics of care whereby acceptance and acknowledgement by peers builds social attachments (McArthur, 2018).Secondly, Honneth's respect recognition speaks to the moral and ethical accountability of legal rights and a commitment to ensuring rights for others.This manifests as self-respect in the form of trusting relationships (Honneth, 1997).The third form, esteem recognition, is developed through the appreciation of peers within a particular community.Loyalty and trust arise through reciprocity and mutuality Honneth, 2007).Conversely, when any of these three aspects are not present, Honneth argues that misrecognition occurs, and this is the foundation for forms of injustice.
In the following section we introduce the assessment criteria and the arts university context.

Assessment criteria and the Arts University context
Prior to the investigation reported on in this article, the Arts University developed a new set of assessment criteria for use across all courses and all levels of study.There were several drivers for this change.Staff and students found the original criteria complex and there were repeated calls from staff for a redesign.There was a community of staff who were engaged in assessment research, and they wanted that research to inform policies.The university wanted to ensure that all aspects of assessment supported its ambition to eliminate awarding differentials between white students and students of colour.An assessment criteria refresh allowed for an examination of the ways in which all aspects of assessment in the Arts University could promote social justice.Staff and students who were consulted reported that they wanted the university assessment criteria to: • Support attainment and the promotion of social justice, underlining that 'assessment is a social justice issue because it can have a profound effect over students current and future lives' (McArthur, 2018, p. 33).
• Encourage students to adopt approaches to study that would support them when they graduated into the creative industries.• Align with the university's creative pedagogies and values.
• Be well-designed and visually engaging to reflect our creative context.
• Have a generative function: students and staff wanted criteria that served to steer the students' learning approaches.
• Identify ways to support and reward students whose creative work drew on references from beyond a western canon (Tunstall, 2019).
The criteria 1 were designed in a way that promoted interpretation and adaptation within each of the disciplines of the Arts University.They acknowledged the illusion of standardisation and exactness of the act of grading, and they fulfilled Bloxham et al.'s (2016) call for more exploration of community processes as a means to make meaning.The academic development sessions were delivered to support the introduction of the new assessment criteria by a range of colleagues at course, programme, and crossinstitutional level.They were designed as participatory and discursive to open up space to think about the use of the assessment criteria as praxis within the disciplines (Land, 2011).Their aim was to explain the rationale behind the new criteria, to explore underpinning pedagogy, to apply the level criteria to disciplinary teaching contexts, and to identify strategies to ensure students can distinguish and apply the criteria.Pedagogical principles underpinning the criteria (see user requirements above) were introduced and through discussion and active learning, academic staff interrogated how they could collaboratively align the criteria to their discipline, curriculum, and assessment practices (Koh, 2011).Five hundred and four staff attended 25 sessions that were delivered through a range of formats: workshops, briefings, and forums.This created an opportunity to engage and share views with others whom they may not have had the opportunity to meet.In the following section, we introduce our methodological approach.

Our methodological strategy
This small-scale qualitative study investigates assessment-focused academic development in its naturalistic setting and situates it within a social constructionist, interpretivist paradigm (Rust et al., 2005).Our research questions were: How have lecturers experienced the academic development sessions?In what ways has this contributed to staff's sense of recognition and agency regarding the assessment criteria implementation?

Ethical framework
In our small-scale qualitative study, we paid attention to the process of our enquiry as part of our commitment to reflexivity (Ackerly & True, 2008;Brew, 1999).At all stages of this research there were careful discussions concerning its ethical dimensions (Cousin, 2009).For example, we noted the ethical challenge associated with researching an aspect of the university that we were part of (i.e. the delivery of the new assessment criteria academic development).In our interviews, we aimed to address positionality and minimise power imbalances by taking a transparent and explanatory position and by building trust with participants (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003).Full ethical sign off was awarded by the university.We adopted a situated ethical practice approach (Mason, 2018).

Methods
This was an opportunity sample where participants were recruited from the pool of lecturers who attended the assessment criteria academic development sessions.Staff were contacted by email and invited to take part in a semi-structured interview.They completed informed consent forms prior to the interviews.Fifteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff in a range of roles including academic support lecturer, associate lecturer, senior lecturer, and course leader, and from a range of discipline areas, such as fine art, design, fashion, and textiles.The sample participants were interviewed by two of the three co-authors of this article and an academic involved in institutional assessment research.They were asked the same five open-ended questions as starting points for semi-structured interviews.
(1) Introduction (participants role and assessment context) (2) Recollection (most salient points, any difficulties/confusion) (3) Change (examples of change in assessment practice following the session) (4) Design (anything missing in the design of the session) (5) Affective dimension (feelings and emotions evoked) The participants were invited to comment on what they had learnt from the session and whether (or in what ways) they had applied this learning to their assessment practices.
They were asked what they recalled about the key messages shared as part of the academic development session they attended, and whether this had contributed to a change in practice.Semi-structured interviews provided a flexible framework to explore participants' experiences, perceptions, and practices to position meaning-making as 'actively and communicatively assembled in the interview encounter' (Holstein & Gubrium, 1997, p. 14).

Analysis
Following Ajjawi et al. (2019), we look at assessment standards as socio-material enactments whereby academic staff interact with assessment criteria and construct their interpretation through interaction with academic communities (O'Donovan et al., 2004).The data offered us a key opportunity to reflect upon the importance of the ways in which staff feel a sense of recognition in the meaning-making process and policy implementation, and the implications of this for academic development.
We applied reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019) as a flexible, qualitative analytic method within a subjectivist and interpretivist paradigm.The analysis began with familiarisation with the data set.Each of the three authors individually coded the data and generated initial themes, firstly at the latent and then at the semantic level.We reviewed our themes together to refine and name them, and we approached this organically and iteratively.We used both qualitative data software (NVivo) and worked manually.We acknowledge that theme development is a subjective and interpretative process (Terry et al., 2017).The constructed themes were then reviewed by the three authors together to ensure a collaborative, reflexive process in presenting our three underpinning central organising concepts (Braun & Clarke, 2019).Throughout our analysis we deployed Honneth's theory of recognition in an iterative way to assess its value in relation to analysing the data.The three interconnected generated themes were: (1) Relational understanding of assessment (2) Conceptions of assessment criteria (3) Expectations of staff development

Theme 1: relational understanding of assessment
In theme one, our analysis pointed to the key role of the relationship between attendees at the academic development events.This brought the importance of recognising the social aspect of the sessions to the surface.The other attendees play a key role in meaning making: 'I was sitting on a table with colleagues who I know, and some who I don't know.It was quite a mix.I always enjoy working with staff from. . .not in my team' (Participant 13).
Linked to this is the recall and the importance given to the discussions happening during the session: 'My abiding memory was that we all had extremely different approaches to assessment criteria' (Participant 9).And of those discussions, there was a clear prevalence of recall of disagreements, rather than agreements, in the participants' accounts of the session, pointing to the role that discussions play in making meaning and understanding the criteria.Participants' positionality is often foregrounded in terms of experience, interest in teaching and learning developments, seniority and/or place in a perceived hierarchy: 'I'm an early-stage academic.And I'm quite eager to learn new things.And maybe I come across as naïve to some of the older academics.And because I don't know when I hear a new idea or a new pedagogy or whatever . . .I get really curious.And I'm interested' (Participant 4).
Another type of positionality revolves around the role of the university's hierarchy.There may be a perceived tension between an academic developer's attempt to enable all viewpoints to be expressed and participants' sense of their own place: 'I thought it was democratic, although some people don't behave very democratically.I think they bring their hierarchies with them' (Participant 9).This hierarchy is felt by an early-stage academic as resistance and did not enhance the experience of self-esteem.On the other hand, more experienced staff taking part in the study emphasised their leading role and saw it as a positive: 'I involved myself, I kind of took charge a bit [. ..].Which is something that perhaps because of my Course Leader role I did' (Participant 14).Some of the interviewees reported a lack of personal agency and a lack of recognition: 'there was a bit of a concern around why the assessment criteria has been brought in' (Participant 4); and one participant reported that the session was the first time they discovered that the new criteria had been introduced 'I was like, really, the criteria are changing and I didn't know?' (Participant 5).From that point of view, the session is seen as a moment when voices can be heard, restoring some agency for all staff: 'it was a good opportunity for everyone to come together and air various concerns' (Participant 6).This finding is a powerful reminder that however much a university carries out extensive consultation with diverse groups of stake holders, there will always be many staff who were not able to or chose not to engage at the development stage.For these staff, new initiatives and policy simply appear in a way that can reduce their sense of agency.
This question of positionality also comes through in relation to the discipline taughtseen by some as an explanation for differing perceptions of the criteria: 'I think there was somebody else in the group who was on a more design-led pathway rather than fine art, and they had a really different attitude' (Participant 4).The relational dimension associated with making sense of the criteria was not limited to the academic development session itself, but extended to the implementation of the criteria amongst a team.Reflecting on post-workshop dissemination with team members who had not attended the session, one of the participants emphasised the importance of discussion: 'The criteria have to be picked over.There have to be agreed terms among staff and, crucially, among students and staff.I think that's very important, and I think that takes up a lot of time and energy' (Participant 9) Given the ways that meaning making is contingent on the constellation of attendees at each academic development event, it is unsurprising that another facet of this theme points to the expression of an affective reaction to the session and/or the act of assessment.Following Myyry et al. (2020), looking at the balance of positive and negative emotions provides a picture of the affective impact of the session.Positive aspects of the sessions were often articulated ('I love these sessions when we're all happy together, I love it' (Participant 14)), but are balanced out by the expression of negative feelings -for example 'astonishment' at some colleagues' resistant attitudes; frustration at 'an undercurrent of negativity which inhibits the dialogue' (participant 9); anger at poorly designed assessment.The act of assessment itself is seen as 'a bit hairy' (Participant 1), 'difficult' (Participant 6) and 'a big responsibility' (Participant 9).

Theme 2: conceptions of the assessment criteria
In theme two, our analysis moves to a focus on the participants' relationships with the criteria themselves.
Underlying beliefs about the purpose of assessment are foregrounded in participants' accounts of the session and its impact on their practice.While some participants questioned the need for grades and the grade level descriptors within the criteria, others praised those descriptors as a key element.Participant 1 said, 'I would be so happy if we could just change it to pass, fail', and according to Participant 8, 'Everyone knows that outstanding is better than excellent, excellent is better than very good, very good is better than . . .So, it is much clearer and simplified for that reason'.
Participants often referred to the interpretation of the criteria, in particular the term 'unpacking', as well as a detailed interrogation of what individual words 'mean'.This suggests a strong belief that there is a certain, fixed meaning that can be 'discovered' through obtaining further knowledge, which can then be passed on to students.This also highlights how learning is conceptualised and a belief in knowledge transfer/content rather than consideration of the context or learning conditions to create meaning: 'I felt that the more times that we unpack the unit outcomes and the assessment criteria, hopefully it'll sink in' (Participant 7).
Some participants stated a desire for clarity and certainty and hoped this would be provided in the academic development sessions: 'I think most of us wanted it so clear and straightforward, that we knew exactly how to mark it' (Participant 7).This conceptualisation of the criteria as referring to absolutes suggests a normative view of languagethe idea that it is made up of words referring to pre-existing, universal realities.Other participants, however, focused on the importance of constructing meaning with others, usually their course team and sometimes students, suggesting a relativist, constructivist view.By valuing the process and recognising the contribution of others, self-esteem was strengthened.Such participants highlighted the awareness of a shift to a fluid or liminal space that was encountered through acts of rephrasing, translation, meaning making, and interpretation.Participant 13 explained, 'It was very clear that there was a shift from, really, trying to unpack those little. . .those wide range of descriptors to, very much as a course team, making those decisions and deciding what all those things look like'.
The new criteria represent a shift in culture, and are in themselves not universal but they are to be adopted and integrated in each discipline and its culture: 'It's like when you're learning another language, and at what point do you stop translating and just speak it?Trying not to translate with the old matrix' (Participant 15).

Theme 3: expectations of academic development
Our third theme situates the relational elements noted in the first two themes within a wider frame of participants' expectations.This theme brings the importance of recognising participants' divergent expectations of academic development to the surface.
Participants highlighted different needs, with some wanting a more practical approach and others a more theoretical exploration of the rationale; this reveals a tension between those looking for the 'how to' and those looking for the 'why'.For example, one participant stated that 'the rationale for some of the changes in the definitions maybe needed to be unpacked more' (Participant 11), while another expressed relief at the fact that the session was 'very targeted, very useful, but didn't go on and on and on' (Participant 5).Participants recognised their own sense of autonomy and individual needs.
When asked to describe how they would design an academic development session, one participant indicated their awareness of the tension between the 'how to' and the 'why'.They described two types of sessions which, in their view, should coexist to fulfil different needs: the 'very practical ones' which help you solve a problem, 'holding your hand', 'telling a new member of staff a hot tip on how to start off with your assessment'; and a more theoretical stream, including a more 'intellectually stimulating' discussion, which might include comparisons with other disciplines and other approaches, as well as potential critiques (Participant 8).These two aspects -the practical and the theoreticalappeared clearly in the recall of the events.
Increased confidence was recurrent in participants' accounts.They spoke of a 'simplification' of assessment practices (such as benchmarking) that had arisen, in part, from attending academic development sessions and partly from the structure of the new criteria (a reduction from 8 to 5 with reduced descriptors).Participants reported that they had developed self-confidence in applying the criteria and constructing meaning.Participant 3 noted, 'the new criteria have taken away a layer of cognitive dissonance there, they've made it much easier for us to be clearer about a way of thinking about it, and a way of making sense of it'.
An additional impact is the bridging of experience, tacit knowledge, and explicit benchmarks, as explained by Participant 15: 'with a lot of experience, you do know what good work looks like and what poor work looks like [. ..] it's more, in a way, how we articulate it to students'.

Discussion
Our interrelated themes point to the importance of the relational aspect of assessmentfocused academic development by highlighting that learning about the new criteria is premised on Honneth's three aspects of recognition: love, esteem, and respect.This is a small-scale qualitative study in a specific arts higher education context, so we do not make generalisability claims; however, wider learning points are tentatively suggested in the form of 'fuzzy generalisations' (Cousin, 2009, p. 134).The design of our study responds to McArthur's view that the implementation of the criteria in use by students and staff is of as much importance as the development of the criteria (McArthur, 2018).The new criteria were designed knowing that they would not in and of themselves produce socially just assessment practices.This study suggests that there is much to learn by exploring the translation from textual artefact and policy (the new assessment criteria) to practice, and the role of academic development in this.We recognise that linear relationships between academic staff development input and teaching enhancement outputs are not always discernible.For example, O' Shea-Poon (2016) noted that attendance at academic development sessions does not always lead to the intended changes in practice and subsequent student learning.However, by exploring assessmentfocused academic development as a key site for social justice, we are recognising the wider social ecology of intersubjective meaning making.This underlines the importance of the relationship between the 'procedures and lived realities' in assessment (McArthur, 2018, p. 4).
As noted by Ragupathi (2021), a key characteristic of impactful academic development events is one that 'empowers academics to think, explore and talk about teaching and enables meaning-making through deep, thoughtful dialogue and interaction' (Ragupathi, 2021, p. 6).Our article shows how a divergence of views in each session was regarded as a key aspect of identity formation as the conversations between colleagues deepened reflection about the criteria.An accidental feature of the implementation (staff attending sessions at times which suited them) speaks to the importance of respect recognition, and that a flexible and inclusive roll-out may provide the optimal environment for reflection and learning.This is of relevance in any university context where academic development is deployed to share, discuss and disseminate new teaching and learning practices.
We have demonstrated that university hierarchies play an important role in academic development, with staff being aware of their positionality as a key contextual element.Our interpretation of the data shows that a lack of agency was perceived by some staff on non-managerial grades, alongside interest and enthusiasm for new academic development, and a strong appetite for, and openness to, change.The blending of experienced and inexperienced staff, and of staff with different positions in the university hierarchy, may prove a positive strategy for developing self-esteem and a sense of 'solidarity' with others.McArthur writes that, 'Self-esteem is fostered when our abilities and actions are regarded as socially useful and are recognized as such' (McArthur, 2018, p. 57).The 'bridge-building' between different hierarchies (Sugrue et al., 2018) can be an important asset to support change.Our participants' positive reaction to discussing assessment outside their teams offers a different perspective from Gibbs (2013), for whom working with teams rather than individuals may be a bigger driver for change.However, the meeting of individuals from different teams as part of a large, cross-institutional change initiative provides an opportunity for opening up discussions, supporting change and experiencing the mutuality of acknowledging diverse contributions.
The new criteria were developed through a series of consultations and collaborative co-construction, and although they reflected the university's creative signature pedagogy, they still needed to be re-translated into local practice.There is no straightforward transfer, and interviewees needed to engage with the terms to make meaning.As such, we recognise that the impact of the academic development sessions was at times conflated with the impact of the new criteria.These two aspects of practice are intertwined.
We noted that some colleagues wanted very practical hands-on academic staff development whilst others wanted to engage with the overarching theory and evidence base for the changes.It is important to address the potential tension between 'routine' and 'adaptive' expertise (Ragupathi, 2021), or between 'threshold' teaching and learning practice and more reflective, developmental approaches, the latter offering the space to explore social justice imperatives for both staff and students.Establishing a baseline professional competency of learning and teaching is a prerequisite to building essential reflective approaches and making changes conducive to social justice.Offering academic development that cares for different needs and signposts these options might allow staff to select the event that best meets their preferences, whilst fostering a sense of love recognition.
The content of the academic staff development sessions foregrounded the importance of an equalities agenda that surfaced, and allowed for discussion of the university's ethnicity awarding gap, but this aspect of the staff development was rarely commented on.Future research and enquiry will help us clarify why attainment and equitable assessment practices were not foregrounded in the participants' accounts.

Conclusions
As noted, our small-scale qualitative study has implications for academic development practice and policy design and implementation.The well-documented importance of the social dimension of staff development is confirmed by our study, to which we add the impact of cross-team sharing of practice rather than only team-focused academic development.We argue that this develops self-esteem through social recognition by peers.The affective dimension of academic development sessions encourages us to design pedagogies of social justice and to consider how we design for love recognition and care.We need to acknowledge the differing stages and motivations that staff may be at -by sign-posting as 'how to', and more 'reflective', scaffolding sessions from the routine to the more developmental, so that change can be supported at all stages.The importance of self-respect and autonomy includes the financial and contractual aspects of attending academic development sessions.Honneth's theory of recognition offers a useful framework to review policies and practices, and to question the ways that misrecognition can occur, so that we can aim to redesign academic development for social justice founded on the principles of love, respect, and esteem.