A postgraduate student focus group exploring belonging and community provided valuable insights into authentic assessment, industry engagement and critical approaches to AI, helping inform curriculum redesign through the Leading Edge Curriculum (LEC) pilot.
Our challenge / opportunity
As part of Newcastle University’s Leading Edge Curriculum (LEC) pilot, three postgraduate Media programmes in the School of Arts and Cultures undertook a curriculum review in spring 2026.
Alongside this process, senior lecturer Jonathan Ward was exploring international student experiences, sense of belonging and community building as part of their scholarship work.
This provided an opportunity to gather student perspectives on their postgraduate experience and use emerging insights to inform curriculum redesign, ensuring that student voice contributed to the development of the programme
Our approach
Jonathan Ward explains how he organised semi-structured focus group with approximately eight postgraduate students from across the three Media programmes.
Working with the programme directors, the facilitator recruited students and developed a small number of guiding questions exploring:
- Students’ motivations for choosing Newcastle and their programmes
- Their experiences of belonging, identity and community
- Opportunities to connect with other students beyond the classroom
- Aspects of their programmes they particularly valued
The session began with informal conversation to create a relaxed environment. Although a few questions provided structure, students were encouraged to discuss their experiences freely, building on each other’s contributions.
With students’ consent, the discussion was recorded and transcribed. AI was used to support the analysis of the transcript alongside the facilitator’s own notes.
The findings were shared through a short report to colleagues and a departmental research and scholarship seminar, before feeding into the LEC curriculum review.
The results
The focus group generated insights that went beyond its original focus on belonging and community, highlighting several priorities relevant to curriculum redesign.
Three key themes emerged:
- Authentic assessment: Students’ perspectives contributed to ongoing discussions about designing assessments that reflect professional practice.
- Industry engagement: Students valued existing opportunities to engage with external partners and industry professionals, including guest speakers, and expressed enthusiasm for these experiences.
- Critical engagement with AI: Students wanted not only to understand how AI tools are used in media and strategic communications, but also to critically evaluate their benefits, limitations and implications for professional practice.
The findings were particularly valuable because they reinforced the direction already being explored by teaching staff. For example, students’ desire for a critical approach to AI closely aligned with staff discussions about AI and assessment design.
The focus group provided additional evidence to support curriculum decisions and demonstrated how student consultation, even when initially undertaken for another purpose, can contribute meaningfully to programme development.
Lessons learned
- Small-scale consultation can generate valuable insights. A single focus group with approximately eight students provided useful evidence to support and challenge emerging curriculum design priorities.
- Allowing flexibility in the discussion was important. Although the session focused on belonging and community, the semi-structured approach enabled students to raise wider issues relevant to teaching, assessment and employability.
- Student perspectives can validate or challenge staff assumptions. In this case, students’ views on AI and industry engagement closely aligned with the priorities being discussed by the teaching team.
Tips for colleagues
In the LEC process, all programmes must undergo student consultations; the approach is set out in the Student Engagement guide. However, Schools and Programme Teams can undertartake additional activities, such as interviews or surveys. Here are some tips:
- Keep it manageable: A single focus group with a small number of students can provide useful insights.
- Work with programme directors to identify and recruit students, allowing sufficient notice and considering incentives where appropriate.
- Prepare 2–3 guiding questions around themes relevant to your programme, while allowing the conversation to develop naturally.
- Create an informal atmosphere where students feel comfortable discussing their experiences openly.
- Record and analyse the discussion with consent, using transcription and AI-supported summaries alongside your own notes.
- Share the findings with colleagues and consider how they support or challenge emerging curriculum design decisions.
Skills and attributes
Students were able to develop the following attributes:
Education for Life Strategy
This case study reflects the following aims of the Education for Life strategy: (remove irrelevant)
- Equity: Listening to postgraduate students, particularly international students, to better understand their experiences of belonging and community.
- Encounters with the Leading Edge: Recognising the value of industry partnerships and critically engaging with emerging technologies and professional practices.
- Fit for the future: Using student perspectives to inform authentic assessment and the development of skills relevant to future careers.
Further resources
Authors
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Jonathan Ward Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Cultures LEC Education Fellow |