Reviewing our asynchronous resources (the ROAR project): using student voice to inform LD support

Asynchronous digital resources, such as videos, allow students to learn at times and in places that suit them and are widely used in LD. Such resources help students reinforce skills as well as learn new ones (Tomaszewski, 2023), with evidence to suggest that appropriate digital learning modes in HE also support the development of students’ digital literacies (McGuinness & Fulton, 2019). Furthermore, at a time of budget cuts and hiring freezes across Higher Education in the UK (Lewis & Bolton, 2024), and the resulting increases in the demands on Learning Developers, it is arguably more important than ever to ensure that these asynchronous resources are meeting the needs of students. The Academic Skills Team at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) has a range of these asynchronous online resources. To ensure the team are continuing to support diverse learners in the dynamic landscape of HE post-COVID, a review into the usability and accessibility of these resources was warranted, as research suggests these are factors in students’ engagement with online resources (Bringman-Rodenbarger & Hortsch, 2020). Inspired by discussions during ALDcon24 around the role of using evidence in our practice, after a comprehensive literature review, we created a study into current offerings to assess whether these align with what is recommended from research. As student voice is at the heart of student engagement (Seale et al., 2015) we engaged 7 ENU students in scenario-based tasks. Using the Think Aloud Protocol (van Someren et al. 1994) we captured their thoughts and combined this with screencast videography (Kawaf, 2019) to see how they interacted with the resources. The presentation discusses our findings and how we are using these to redesign the asynchronous offerings and develop new support resources as well as share our experiences of engaging in research within the field of Learning Development.