Learning Advisor and Lecturer Collaborations to Embed Discipline-Specific Literacies Development in Degree Programmes

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify a sustainable collaborative model for programme-level embedded literacies development. This thesis contributes new knowledge on the collaborative processes between learning advisors (LAs), liaison librarians (LLs), and lecturers that are conducive to embedding genre-based assessment-specific literacies development into degree programmes. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, this study was set at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand and comprised two phases. Phase One involved a questionnaire for all lecturing staff about learning, teaching and student literacies development as well as a focus group of LAs on the nature of their roles and student literacies development. Phase Two comprised case studies of LA, LL, and lecturer collaborations on six papers in a Bachelor of Education programme using interviews, a focus group, and thematic analysis of teaching materials and curriculum documents. The main finding of the research is a proposed collaborative model for LAs, LLs, and lecturers: the Programme-wide Collaborative Model of Embedding Literacies Development (the ProCo model). The ProCo model comprises six processes: leading, mapping, co-designing, team-teaching, evaluating, and handing over. In combination, these processes can offer a robust set of procedures for collaboratively designing and teaching literacies materials that are discipline and assessment specific, cumulatively oriented, and relevant to students’ future professional contexts. The findings of this research suggest that LAs, LLs, and lecturers face complex tasks in collaborating across departmental and disciplinary boundaries for the identification and articulation of the literacies demands of assessments across whole programmes of study, the design of teaching materials that make such demands visible to students, and the subsequent team-teaching of those materials during timetabled classes. While the proposed ProCo model has emerged from a collaboration on an initial teacher education programme, further research could confirm its applicability to programmes in other disciplines. As a means of further validation, future research could also include evaluation of the model’s impact on students’ literacies development throughout their time at university and on into their professional contexts.