eSTEeM Seminar Series: The awarding gap for students with declared mental health conditions compared to students with no declared disability: A practical response

Location: via MS Teams
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eSTEeM Seminar Series

A UK wide survey regarding the prevalence of student mental health challenges within UK HEIs administered in 2018 (Pereira et al., 2019), found that up to 50% of students who identified as having mental health challenges did not declare them to their HEIs. A recent parliamentary report states that student mental ill health has increased six-fold since 2010 (Hubble & Bolton, 2020). The Office for Students (2019) reports a sector-wide statistically significant difference in awarding outcomes for students with mental health disabilities compared to students with no disabilities.

At the Open University (OU) more than 15,000 students declare a mental health condition. There are significant differences in completion rates for students who declare a mental health disability compared to students with no disability and small differences in module good pass rates. The OU’s Access and Participation Plan has set targets to close these outcome gaps. Based on scholarship findings and outcomes from evidence-informed initiatives in the Faculty of Business and Law, this seminar will consider the OU’s context, issues, and practical ways module teams, staff tutors and associate lecturers can undertake scholarship and support students who have declared a mental health condition.

References

Hubble, S., & Bolton, P. (2020). Support for students with mental health issues in higher education in England. UK Parliament Briefing Paper. Available online https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8593/ [Accessed 27 February, 2021]

Office for Students (2019) Mental health: Are all students being properly supported? Insight 5 Available online https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/b3e6669e-5337-4caa-9553-049b3e8e7803/insight-brief-mental-health-are-all-students-being-properly-supported.pdf [Accessed 27 February, 2021]

Pereira, S., Reay K., Bottell, J., Walker, L., Dzikiti, C (2019) University Student Mental Health Survey 2018: A large scale study into the prevalence of student mental illness within UK universities. The Insight Network Available online https://www.theinsightnetwork.co.uk/uncategorized/university-student-mental-health-survey-2018/ [Accessed 25 March, 2020]

Biography

Having left the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL) where she was Head of Student Experience, In April, Mychelle Pride joined the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) as the Lead for Access Participation and Success. In FBL, Mychelle was a member of a team that used co-creation to design a wellbeing toolkit, led a project that co-produced 50 short videos to support student wellbeing and mental health, led a team of Associate Lecturers who have created content for a mental health and wellbeing resource and led a review of tutorial materials from a mental health and wellbeing perspective.

With more than twenty years’ experience in the sector, Mychelle’s work has focused on enabling students to achieve to the best of their abilities and improving student voice. Prior to joining the OU, Mychelle worked as an Assistant Director at the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (dBIS) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on the Teaching Excellence Framework. Mychelle’s areas of scholarship interest are student success, student mental health, practitioner-led and scholarly co-creation. She has an MA in Social Science Research Methods and an MSc in Mental Health Science. In October, Mychelle started her PhD in Psychology in FASS, researching the mental health awarding gap.

About the Facilitator

Mychelle Pride, Academic Lead for Access Participation and Success, WELS

Registration

Each seminar will be recorded and followed by an (optional) online evening discussion on the first Thursday of each month where OU colleagues are invited to come together and discuss in more detail the issues raised in the previous week’s seminar. To confirm your online attendance to the seminar and/or online discussion, please visit the registration page by Monday 26th April.

This seminar is open to OU staff.