Evaluation, Findings, Analysis, Discussion and Conclusions

As outlined in the Research Methodology post, Data Generation: Cycle 1, section of this blog, a total of four participants contributed feedback on the designed artefacts. The feedback was collected from one BA student and three staff members, comprising one Microsoft Teams transcript (discussion-based feedback) and three written responses (emails and documents). The original names of staff participants are reported, while a pseudonym has been used for the student participant.

Given the nature and timing of the data collected, this stage of the project sits within the scope of formative evaluation and design-oriented feedback analysis, alongside pedagogic reflection. In light of the scope, resources, and timeframe of the intervention, and for the purposes of the PgCert submission, I conducted a light qualitative content analysis (Braun eta l., 2023; Ahmed et al., 2024; Friedman and Hendry, 2019; Kara, 2015) to examine formative feedback on the workshop materials, resources, and overall workshop concept, as presented below.

This analysis constitutes the first cycle of the ARP, while the workshop event planned for 18 February 2026 will be treated as a second iteration. Findings from this second iteration will be analysed following a similar approach to this, as outlined in the Research Methodology section. A written mid-term report and a final report will be submitted to EDI on 31 March 2026 and 30 June 2026 respectively, detailing progress against the agreed milestones.

The qualitative content analysis below presents a single consolidated coding framework that integrates feedback from staff and student into a coherent and methodologically rigorous account. The analysis remains descriptive and data-led. I do not smooth over tensions between sources; where perspectives differ (staff vs student), this is made explicit in the coding.

Findings

Data sources:

• Valerie (staff, in-depth verbal feedback)
• Emma (staff, written feedback)
• Jess (staff, written reflective feedback)
• Maya (BA student, written feedback + follow-up)

The raw data uploaded below show the 1 transcript of the Teams open discussion I had with Valerie and the email exchanges with replies to questions from Emma, Jess and Maya.

I contacted Emma twice. Initially I asked her some feedback on the info sheet and consent form, Padlet, and the poster (round 1). I also contacted another colleague and an MA student via Teams but, though they offered to help, I received no replies. The latter sent a later Teams message explaining “Hello Antonella!! How are you? Sorry for the mega delay on this! I’ve been trying to decide on a mortgage, solicitor, property etc so I’ve been very busy but I would love to participate whenever you have a date penciled in!“. Then I sent another email sharing the intervention outline with step-by-step plan for the workshop, and the revised info sheet and consent form, the poster and link to Padlet (round 2). This latter email was the same sent to Valerie, a Senior Lecturer at LCC, Jess, a PgCert colleague working at LCF, and Maya a UXD student. An example of this can be seen from the below screenshot (second from the top). I also sent this email to a few Y1, Y2 and Y3 BA UXD students, but as mentioned, only Maya replied. Considering the short notice and the Christmas break I was confident to have enough information to help shape the design of the intervention to better suit students needs even with this small sample of (4) participants.

The verbal feedback with Valerie lasted 38 minutes and was automatically transcribed by and downloaded from MS Teams. The written feedback, was usually provided via inline comments. The feedback responded the following questions, which as mentioned, were shared with all participants via email:

• Overall concept: Does it feel relevant, useful, and interesting?
• Clarity: Does the poster make sense? Is anything confusing or overwhelming?
• Tone & accessibility: Does anything feel off, too academic, or unclear?
• Padlet & session plan: Does it seem like something students would feel
  comfortable engaging with? Are the activities engaging or not? Is the pace okay?
• Barriers or friction: Is there anything that might make someone hesitate or feel
  unsure about taking part?

The consolidated framework presented below, has been generated from the raw data displayed above. Responses were analysed using a qualitative content analysis approach, focusing on recurrent themes related to relevance, clarity, tone, accessibility, and perceived engagement among other. Given the small sample size and the formative purpose of this data collection (piloting materials rather than evaluating participant experience), this approach was selected to support reflective iteration rather than theory generation. A thematic analysis of values such as belonging, inclusivity, empowerment etc.. has been coded mostly explicitly from the data (Wæraas, 2022).

Consolidated Coding Framework

I started the coding process considering my existing questions as initial categories but I then tailored them to the data:

• Relevance / usefulness
• Suggestions / concerns
• Clarity of materials
• Tone & accessibility
• Comfort & safety
• Engagement & pacing

Pictures of the printed raw data used for analysis are attached below.

8 Main Themes (A – H) were generated from the analysis:

• Theme A: Perceived relevance and value of the intervention
• Theme B: Scope, focus, and feasibility
• theme C: Clarity and accessibility of materials
• Theme D: Tone, language, and framing
• Theme E: Padlet, activities, and engagement
• Theme F: Inclusivity, accessibility, and lived experience
• Theme G: Barriers to participation
• Theme H: Recruitment, dissemination, and sustainability

Quotes from participants were extracted as illustrative evidence, code labels and descriptors are all shown for each of the Themes generated in the below tables (Theme A to Theme H).

Code	Code label	Description (merged)	Sources	Illustrative evidence
A1	Intervention relevance	Intervention perceived as relevant, useful, and timely	All	“really great project” (Valerie); “relevant and interesting” (Maya)
A2	Institutional value	Seen as having potential impact beyond the session	Valerie, Jess, Emma	“useful for the university” (Valerie); “co-created spaces” (Jess)
A3	Empowerment potential	Session framed as empowering student voice	Valerie, Jess	“giving them a voice” (Valerie); “fosters empowerment and community” (Jess)

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
B1	Risk of over-scope	Concern that intervention covers too much	Valerie, Emma	“it’s a lot” (Valerie); “trying to do too much” (Emma)
B2	Need for prioritisation	Suggestion to reduce or select fewer topics/questions	Valerie, Emma	“maybe keep maybe one one question” (Valerie); “focus on one area” (Emma)
B3	Time constraint awareness	Recognition of limited session time	Valerie, Emma	“very limited time” (Valerie); “hard to know how much you’ll get through” (Emma)
B4	Flexibility within plan	Desire for adaptability emphasised	Valerie, Maya	“keep maybe one one question or two for each section and then use the the others as as prompt only if you need to” (Valerie); “wonder how much flexibility there is” (Maya)

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
C1	Poster clarity	Poster content understood and accessible	All	“poster itself was really clear” (Valerie)
C2	Visual design supports access	Visual elements aid navigation and tone	Valerie, Jess, Maya	“easy to navigate” (Valerie); “calm and welcoming” (Jess);
C3	Information density	Materials perceived as content-heavy	Valerie, Emma, Jess	“a LOT of content” (Emma); “5 pages felt a bit daunting” (Jess)
C4	Information sheet and Consent Form readability	Mixed readability; some sections demanding	Valerie, Maya	“requires more reading” (Valerie); “hard to read” (Maya)
C5	Specific clarity gaps	Missing or unclear information identified	Valerie, Jess	contact details (Valerie); “What does SIG stand for?” (Jess)
C6	Repetition for usability	Repeating key info such as contact details improves accessibility	Valerie	“might as well repeat it”

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
D1	Appropriate tone	Tone perceived as balanced and suitable	All	“all good” (Emma); “can be taken seriously” (Jess) “feels digestible” (Maya)
D2	Formality as legitimacy	Formal tone seen as conferring seriousness	Jess	“gives you the sense that this is proper and can/will be taken seriously”
D3	Framing risks	Wording may unintentionally alienate	Jess	“‘Staff will be excluded’… does this imply staff will be a threat?”
D4	Inclusivity of language	Language generally inclusive	Maya, Jess	“language… inclusive already” (Maya) “they are really well judged and accessible questions I think” (Jess)
D5	Demographic ambiguity	Uncertainty about who the session is for	Maya	“The biggest barrier I could see with people not taking part is not being sure if they fit in the study demographic”

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
E1	Padlet comfort	Padlet perceived as safe and accessible	Valerie, Emma, Maya	“Padlet yes” (Emma); “so the padlet is for you to collate information…I’ll get that. That’s fine…if it’s for you to upload stuff, then that’s fine, but they will be uploading only” (Valerie)
E2	Tool purpose clarity	Need to clarify Padlet’s role	Valerie, Jess	“what is it for exactly?” (Valerie)
E3	Multimodal participation	Value of varied participation formats	Valerie, Maya	different modalities “I think it’s a great idea” (Valerie) “really like the variety of tasks” (Maya)
E4	Engagement of activities	Activities seen as engaging	Emma, Maya	“engaging” (Emma); “really like the talking points” (Maya)
E5	Visibility of questions	Suggestion to foreground questions	Jess, Valerie	“make them a little bigger” (Jess) “will you have some of your questions on padlet before you send it to them because ..I know that I always struggle with that when people ask me big questions and I have to think on the cuff like that I need to” (Valerie)

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
F1	Cognitive accessibility	Need for reflection time acknowledged	Valerie	“prefer to have the questions before” (Valerie)
F2	Conflicting access needs	Recognition of divergent accessibility needs	Valerie	“different people with different disabilities will have sometimes conflicting needs” (Valerie)
F3	Policy–practice gap	Gap between policy and lived experience	Valerie	“and their idea of helping of supporting disabled people was to basically, and I don’t think the university did” (Valerie)
F4	Accessibility as systemic	Barriers framed as institutional, not individual	Valerie	“it was unfair on her as well because she was feeling like, really awkward about it.”
F5	Belonging and allies	Need to explicitly welcome allies	Maya	“adding ‘neurotypical’ would help”

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
G1	Time as barrier	Time pressure discourages participation	Maya, Valerie	“feeling like they don’t have time” (Maya) “It’s a tricky time because they’ve got deadlines” (Valeire)
G2	Uncertainty about fit	Hesitation due to unclear eligibility	Maya	“not sure if they fit”
G3	Cognitive overload	Volume may overwhelm participants	Valerie, Maya	“it’s covering a lot” (Valerie) “..would it be possible to split up some of the paragraphs” (Maya)
G4	Language misinterpretation	Risk of wording causing discomfort	Jess	“staff will be excluded”

Code	Code label	Description	Sources	Evidence
H1	Recruitment complexity	Recruitment recognised as difficult	Valerie, Emma	“no magic way” (Valerie) “At the end of the day it really just depends what students you get for your session.” (Emma)
H2	Multi-channel recruitment	Value of posters, emails, face-to-face	Valerie	“I think that’s a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think so, because also it becomes more kind of, there’s already a connection” (Valerie)
H3	Timing sensitivity	Recruitment timing affects engagement	Emma	“tricky time of year” (Emma)
H4	Collegial support	Offers of help from colleagues	Valerie, Emma	“I could support recruitment” (Valerie)

Analysis

Across all sources, the consolidated data show strong agreement on:

• High relevance and value
• Strength of participatory, multimodal design
• Need to manage scope, pacing, and cognitive load
• Importance of clarity around belonging and inclusion
• Risk of unintentional exclusion through wording

Differences emerge mainly between:

• Staff focus: feasibility, institutional impact, scope, less info
• Student focus: readability, belonging, demographic clarity, additional info

The analysis of the combined feedback reveals a clear and systematic distinction between how staff participants (Valerie, Emma, Jess) and the student participant (Maya) engage with and evaluate the intervention. These differences are not contradictory; rather, they reflect positional perspectives shaped by institutional role, responsibility, and lived experience.

1. Focus on feasibility versus focus on experience

Staff focus:
Staff feedback is consistently oriented toward feasibility, manageability, and implementation constraints. Valerie and Emma repeatedly emphasise:

• the risk of over-scoping,
• limited time available within the session,
• the practical challenge of managing complex discussions within institutional boundaries.

For example, Emma questions whether the intervention is “trying to do too much,” while Valerie repeatedly suggests reducing, prioritising, or staging questions due to time and cognitive load.

Student focus:
Maya’s feedback, by contrast, centres on the experience of participation rather than delivery. Her concerns relate to:

• readability of materials, suggested to “split up some of the paragraphs“,
• whether she would feel she “belongs” in the study,
• whether participation feels manageable alongside existing time pressures.

Staff evaluate the intervention as something to run; students evaluate it as something to enter. This difference highlights that feasibility for facilitators does not automatically translate into accessibility for participants.

2. Conceptual scope versus personal clarity

Staff focus:
Staff engaged with the conceptual breadth of the project. Emma suggests narrowing the focus (e.g. concentrating on technology), while Valerie reflects on distinctions between “learning experience” and “student experience.” These reflections position the intervention within wider pedagogical, institutional, and research frameworks.

Student focus:
Maya does not question conceptual framing at this level. Instead, her feedback focuses on:

• which sections of the information sheet are hard to understand,
• how paragraphs are structured,
• whether terminology and framing clearly indicate who the session is for.

Staff assess conceptual coherence and research design; the student assesses immediate intelligibility. This suggests that conceptual clarity at a design level does not guarantee clarity at a participant level.

3. Institutional awareness versus demographic uncertainty

Staff focus:
Staff demonstrate a high level of institutional literacy. Valerie and Jess reference:

• policy constraints,
• regulatory limits,
• structural barriers beyond individual control.

Their concerns often assume familiarity with how institutions function and where power resides.

Student focus:
Maya’s feedback reveals uncertainty about eligibility and belonging, expressed as:

“not being sure if they fit in the study demographic.”

She identifies this uncertainty as a potential barrier to participation.

While staff focus on what institutions allow, students focus on whether they are allowed to be present. This highlights that inclusion is not only structural but also symbolic and communicative.

4. Discursive framing: protection versus invitation

Staff focus:
Jess raises concerns about the phrasing “staff will be excluded,” questioning whether this frames staff as a “threat” or implies prior silencing. This reflects a sensitivity to discursive positioning and institutional politics.

Student focus:
Maya responds to framing in terms of welcome and reassurance, suggesting explicit inclusion of “neurotypical” allies to signal openness and welcoming.

Staff scrutinise how language positions groups relative to power; students attend to whether language invites or deters participation. Both are concerned with inclusion, but at different discursive levels.

5. Time pressure as logistics versus lived constraint

Staff focus:
Staff refer to time as a logistical constraint:

• limited session duration,
• difficulty fitting content into allocated time,
• recruitment timing around the academic calendar.

Student focus:
Maya frames time as a personal and affective barrier:

“not having time (or at least, feeling like they don’t have time).”

Staff conceptualise time as a resource to manage; students experience time as a pressure that shapes willingness to engage. This difference suggests that designing for time efficiency alone may not address perceived burden.

6. Positivity and critique: balance versus entry safety

Staff focus:
Both Valerie and Jess caution against an overly critically-focused approach, advocating for identifying “what works” alongside challenges. This reflects staff concern with:

• actionable outcomes,
• sustainability,
• institutional learning.

Maya does not raise this issue directly. Her feedback implies that psychological safety and clarity are prerequisites before critique or positivity can even occur.

Staff seek balance in analytical outcomes; students prioritise safety and comprehension as conditions for participation.

The divergence between staff and student focus demonstrates that inclusive intervention design requires addressing two distinct but interconnected layers:

1. Operational inclusivity (staff perspective):
   Ensuring the intervention is feasible, bounded, institutionally aware, and capable of producing actionable outcomes.
2. Experiential inclusivity (student perspective):
   Ensuring participants feel they belong, can understand what is being asked of them, and do not experience unnecessary cognitive or emotional barriers to entry.

The data suggest that staff-designed inclusivity initiatives risk unintentionally reproducing exclusion if participant-facing clarity and belonging cues are not foregrounded alongside conceptual robustness.

Grounded in the findings, the intervention would benefit from:

• Explicit signalling of who is welcome and why (student-led concern),
• Continued scope management and prioritisation (staff-led concern),
• Treating clarity, readability, and framing as core inclusion mechanisms, not secondary design features.

Following the suggested edits, raised issues, and friction points highlighted by the four participants the resources, including the poster, info sheet and consent forms, Padlet, and the workshop session outlined structure have been edited and simplified to hopefully enable student’s better experience once recruitment starts (around mid of January ’26). I still need to edit the poster following Maya’s suggestions to add to it. Maya liked the idea of adding “neurotypical” to let students who are allies feel more explicitly included and also said that “it might be good to highlight some potential outcomes on the poster, like the ones in the Info & Consent Form”. While I managed to add neurotypical to the poster I didn’t find the space to introduce the outcomes.

Discussion

This action research project set out to explore the design and feasibility of a student-led Workshop focused on inclusivity, accessibility, and institutional change within LCC. Feedback from staff colleagues (Valerie, Emma, Jess) and a BA student (Maya) reveals a productive tension between operational feasibility and experiential accessibility. It can be argued that this tension is not a limitation of the intervention, but rather an expression of the power relations, epistemic positions, and value negotiations that shape participatory work in higher education.

By situating these findings within existing literature on student voice (Wolgemuth et al., 2024; Welton et al., 2022; Domínguez et al., 2022; Taylor and Robinson, 2009), intersectionality (Crenshaw, 2013; Le, 2024; Brontsema, 2004), inclusive design (Friedman, and Hendry, 2019; Hanington and Martin, 2019; Milton, Martin and Melham, 2016; Lidwell, Holden and Butler 2010), and participatory research (Burke, 2013; McTaggart, Nixon, and Kemmis, 2016), and following Wæraas’ (2022) discussion of values work as the ongoing articulation and negotiation of values through texts, the intervention can be understood as a site where values around inclusion, care, and feasibility are made visible and contested.

Staff and student perspectives as situated knowledge

The analysis highlights a clear divergence between staff and student feedback, reflecting what Braun et al., (2023) describe as the situated and reflexive nature of meaning-making. Staff respondents primarily evaluated the intervention through lenses of scope, feasibility, time, and institutional constraint, while the student focused on belonging, clarity, and accessibility at the point of entry.

This distinction aligns with Ahmed’s (2012) critique of institutional diversity work, where those positioned closer to organisational responsibility often focus on what is possible within systems, while marginalised participants focus on whether those systems are habitable. Staff feedback reflects an implicit concern with delivery; student feedback foregrounds experience.

Rather than interpreting this divergence as disagreement, this analysis supports Taylor and Robinson’s (2009) argument that student voice initiatives must recognise unequal power relations and epistemic authority. The data suggest that staff and students are not responding to the same intervention in the same way, because they are not positioned equally within it.

Feasibility, scope, and the politics of containment

Staff concerns about the intervention “doing too much” resonate strongly with Macfarlane, Bolden and Watermeyer’s (2024) discussion of pragmatist leadership in higher education, where innovation must be tempered by institutional realities. Valerie and Emma repeatedly emphasise time constraints, cognitive load, and the risk of over-scoping, concerns that are legitimate within action research cycles that prioritise sustainability and iteration (McTaggart, Nixon and Kemmis, 2016).

However, these concerns also echo what Mountz et al. (2015) describe as the neoliberal compression of academic time, where participatory, reflective work must be justified through efficiency. The staff focus on containment contrasts with the student emphasis on whether the space feels safe and intelligible enough to enter at all.

This raises a critical question: feasible for whom?
As Burke (2013) argues, access to higher education is not only about formal inclusion, but about the right to meaningful participation. An intervention that is operationally feasible but experientially exclusionary risks reproducing the very inequities it seeks to address.

Accessibility as relational, not just technical

Student feedback foregrounds accessibility not as a technical compliance issue, but as a relational and affective experience. Maya’s difficulty with specific sections of the information sheet, uncertainty about whether she “fits” the demographic, and concern about time all speak to what Lynch (2010) describes as the hidden labour of navigating uncaring systems.

This aligns with Milton’s (2012) “double empathy problem” and Rosqvist et al.’s (2022) work on epistemic injustice, which emphasise that misunderstandings around accessibility often stem from mismatched assumptions rather than individual ‘deficits’¹. Maya’s request for clearer signals of inclusion (e.g. explicitly naming neurotypical allies) illustrates how belonging must be actively communicated, not assumed.

Staff participants, by contrast, tended to conceptualise accessibility in structural terms, policies, regulations, systems, mirroring Friedman and Hendry’s (2019) account of value sensitive design, where values must be surfaced and negotiated explicitly rather than embedded implicitly. The intervention therefore becomes a space where values around care, inclusion, and legitimacy are actively contested (Wæraas, 2022).

Student voice, power, and the limits of invitation

Both staff and student feedback engage with the politics of student voice, albeit differently. Staff emphasise empowerment and institutional learning, echoing Welton et al. (2022) and Domínguez et al. (2022), who caution that student voice initiatives often risk becoming symbolic if they do not redistribute power.

Maya’s hesitation about belonging suggests that being invited is not equivalent to feeling authorised to speak. This supports Boler’s (1999) pedagogy of discomfort, in which participation requires navigating fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability. The intervention’s framing as a “student-only space” was intended to protect participants, yet Jess’s concern about how this exclusion is phrased demonstrates how protective measures can inadvertently create new tensions.

This reflects Ahmed’s (2012) argument that inclusion often generates new forms of exclusion, particularly when boundaries are not carefully articulated. The data suggest that clarity of intent and clarity of invitation are as important as the structural design of the space itself.

Creative and participatory methods as ethical practice

The strong endorsement of multimodal activities, Padlet use, and flexible participation aligns with Kara’s (2015) and Wolgemuth et al.’s (2024) advocacy for creative and participatory qualitative methods. Both staff and student respondents valued the availability of multiple modes of engagement, reinforcing Ahmed et al.’s (2024) findings that visual and participatory methods can surface experiences that traditional verbal approaches may obscure.

However, Valerie’s concern about conflicting access needs highlights the ethical complexity of participatory design, echoing Fox’s (2025) and Le’s (2024) intersectional critiques of accessibility. Inclusion is not additive; it is negotiated, partial, and sometimes contradictory. Recognising this tension is itself a form of ethical reflexivity.

Implications for action research practice

From a critical participatory action research perspective (McTaggart et al., 2016), in my opinion, the divergence between staff and student feedback should not be resolved but held productively. The findings suggest that the next iteration of the intervention should:

• Treat clarity, framing, and belonging cues as central design features rather than peripheral refinements.
• Acknowledge time and scope constraints without allowing them to override experiential accessibility.
• Make values explicit, particularly around inclusion, safety, and participation, rather than assuming shared understanding.

In this sense, the intervention functions not only as a pedagogical space, but as a micro-site of institutional critique (Pereira, 2017; Phipps, 2022), where the contradictions of inclusivity work in the neoliberal university become visible.

Conclusion

The differences between staff and student feedback do not indicate a failure of alignment, but rather expose the layered realities of inclusive pedagogical design. Staff focus on feasibility reflects institutional responsibility; student focus on belonging reflects lived experience. Bringing these perspectives into dialogue is not only necessary for the success of the intervention, but central to its ethical and political purpose.

As hooks (1994) argues, education as a practice of freedom requires discomfort, reflexivity, and a willingness to listen differently. This action research process demonstrates that inclusive design is less about perfect solutions and more about sustaining spaces where competing needs, values, and voices can coexist.

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Footnotes

1. I used single inverted commas to display my disagreement with normative terms used in the article (i.e., deficits) to reflect on the normalised use of ableist language critically ↩︎