A Data…. What?
When we launched the Manchester Metropolitan University Q-Step centre in 2013, we knew that to deliver our ambitious plans for upskilling undergrads in quants meant tackling the perennial issue of ‘I don’t like numbers’ / ‘I’m not good with numbers’. It is widely acknowledged (see https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/resources/tt_maths_sociology.pdf) that how students feel about numbers can be a barrier to learning quants. This is a two-headed beast of tackling feelings about numbers whilst building confidence with quants work. We did many things to address both issues (see https://iase-web.org/documents/SERJ/SERJ16(1)_Jones.pdf) but one core element we wanted to embed was the use of peer-assisted-learning.
We had observed over the (pre-Q-Step) years that often the most able students in lab would offer informal peer support; this collective peer learning seemed to work. Our plan was to harness this into a formal programme where students would be trained and paid to support their more junior (in terms of level of study) peers. Peer-assisted-learning fills and bridges the space between the formal (however friendly) relationship between tutor and student; with a student who will fill that space with their own experiential learning. We named them ‘Data Buddies’ to invoke a sense of friendliness.
Picture 1: Data Buddies 2019-20: would you trust these guys to support your students?
Picture 2: Data Buddies 2014 at the pop-up Maths Café, note the hugely unpopular hi-vis jackets they wore.
We targeted final year (undergrad) students: pay, flexible campus job, CV experience and altruism were all motivations. They were trained by the Q-Step team and then deployed across campus in one of two roles: either supporting our pop-up, cross-campus numeracy support for all students (so-called Maths Cafes) or in-labs, directly supporting students in class alongside tutors. Some did both roles. The Data Buddies came from a myriad of numbers-heavy disciplines but only supported in-lab sessions for their own disciplines.
Picture 3: The Data Buddy programme won a campus award in 2015
The Data Buddies brought vital encouragement via ‘war stories’, i.e. ‘I struggled with this last year but….’ or ‘I didn’t get this at first either, but….’ which clearly resonated with struggling students. There was also some element of role modelling going on too. Tutors noted that students preferred to ask the Data Buddies for help, as they felt more comfortable admitting a lack of understanding to a peer, especially if the tutor had already explained the concept several times in class. An evaluation of the pop-up numeracy support across campus was overwhelmingly positive with students engaging with numeracy support for the first time at our university, proving that there was a need for more formal numeracy support (which we now have in place). Students acknowledged that they found the Data Buddies more approachable and they felt less ‘stupid’ asking for help than they would a tutor. From a Q-Step perspective, it succeeded in supporting the building of confidence amongst our quants students.
Today we still use Data Buddies as a key way to support student-learning in our quants labs in years 1 and 2. There is something about the learning and doing of quants that requires a student-friendly space to make and learn from mistakes. The presence of a Data Buddy in a lab provides a vital element to creating that environment to ‘try-fail-learn-try again-learn some more’ approach which students need to develop in order to build confidence and competence with quants.
Professor Julie Scott Jones is Head of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and Coordinator of the MMU Q-Step Centre.
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