Significant Personal Disclosure: exploring the support and development needs of HE tutors engaged in the emotion work associated with supporting students.

Abstract

This paper explores emotion work taking place in the private and personalized space of supportive encounters between individual students and tutors. An emotional labour framework is used to consider the effects on tutors of work intensification and performance requirements in learning relationships with students. The paper goes on to consider professional role boundaries and staff development, training and support. The paper concludes that institutions need to recognize the existence of emotion work as a pedagogy in the context of student support or learning development. Failure to do so will have detrimental effects on tutors and the service they provide to students.

Academics’ perceptions and experiences of working with students with mental health problems: insights from across the UK higher education sector

“…If you're dealing with students who are experiencing paranoia or depression, then managing that student in the classroom … is going to have an impact on your own mental health and sense of wellbeing and confidence. (P1 -post-1992, SS) This supports the studies by Huyton (2009) and Laws and Fielder (2012), who found that supporting students with MHPs was time-consuming and stressful for academics, exacerbated by lack of training and support for staff to develop their skills in supporting students with MHPs.…”

“…It is recommended that academic staff should be able to support students with MHPs (Baik, Larcombe, & Brooker, 2019;Wynaden, Wichmann, & Murray, 2013). However, the literature indicates that many, if not most, academics lack the necessary knowledge and skills to do so (for example, Huyton, 2009;Laws & Fielder, 2012). Contrary to reports of the prevalence of student MHPs, Macaskill (2013) found that many course leaders in the UK believed MHPs were not an issue for their students, and she posits that lecturers may not be sufficiently familiar with MHPs.…”

University staff mental health literacy, stigma and their experience of students with mental health problems

“…Therefore, university teaching staff members may be important in linking students with professional help. However, many teachers may not feel sufficiently equipped to assist students with these problems (Rickwood, Deane et al 2005, Huyton 2009) and may lack knowledge about mental disorders (Walter, Gouze et al 2006). In addition, they may hold attitudes that actively impede their willingness to facilitate access to professional sources of help for the young person (Wilson and Deane 2000).…”

The see-saw of wellbeing: What factors influence a learning advisor’s wellbeing and happiness, in and outside of their work?

“…With this in mind, it is surprising that the emotional dimensions of our TLA work are not more significantly reflected in the literature on TLA practice. Apart from Mitchell's (2008) discussion of the skills and competencies required to engage with and respond to learners' emotions, the most relevant article related to TLAs' own emotions is from Huyton (2009)-who, notably, is an author of Dodge et al's (2012) article defining wellbeing. Huyton (2009) voices particular concern about the 'emotion work' (management of emotions) of higher education practitioners involved in student support and learning development-particularly in light of the work intensification in those roles, and especially for those practitioners who have little or no previous experience of emotion work.…”

“…4, No. 1. stress and anxiety, there is an argument for extending Huyton's (2009) discussion of the emotional labour involved in student support and learning development. This could include an exploration of how using emotion regulation strategies to decrease negative emotions or increase positive emotions might support how we manage our experiences or express our emotions in our TLA work.…”