Troublesome Encounters: Strategies for managing the wellbeing of Postgraduate Education students during their learning processes

This research investigated factors in the learning of masters and doctoral students in Education which impact on their wellbeing.  It started with the premise that postgraduate learning often involves transformation, yet encounters with new concepts and ways of being can trigger anxiety and uncertainty.  Exploring these troublesome encounters, we aimed to identify strategies to enhance wellbeing and therefore success.  The project has built on previous research conducted by the investigators, which included an HEA NTFS funded research project’ Doctoral learning journeys’(Wisker, Morris et.al 2010) and an individual NTFS project (2005- 2011) led by Professor Gina Wisker, alongside University of Brighton research and development into student wellbeing led by the researcher Charlotte Morris (Marshall and Morris, 2011; Morris with Wisker et.al, 2011).  This ESCalate project brings together the central themes of research student supervision, threshold concepts theory and student wellbeing.  It was funded by an ESCalate Themed funding ‘Student Well-being’ Grant and was run from the Centre for Learning and Teaching in the University of Brighton in collaboration with the University of Strathclyde and the University of Durham.