An evaluation of a new equality, diversity, and inclusion activity that uses adaptive comparative judgement to improve delivery and outcomes

This study evaluates a new introductory equality, diversity, and inclusion activity deployed in a first-year undergraduate engineering programme. It investigates the overall effectiveness of the activity at improving student understanding of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) topics and how the use of adaptive comparative judgement (ACJ) contributed to this understanding. It also explores student perceptions of learning about EDI and participating in ACJ sessions. After completing the activity, students participated in an online survey and a single focus group. Survey results were analysed quantitively whilst focus groups results were analysed qualitatively using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Although the activity was somewhat effective at introducing EDI topics, and ACJ had a broadly positive impact, more development work is needed; student engagement with the activity and with their peers needs to be improved, and the way ACJ is deployed and used needs to be optimized. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .