Rethinking psychological safety in online learning – tackling the elephant in the room
When we talk about learning in general, we often focus on the student-tutor interaction. Through my research and discussions with students, I noticed an interesting dynamic, often students did not differentiate between UAL as an institution and their tutors. While it was clear that they had a connection with their tutor (and vice versa), what was less apparent was that both the students and the tutor are also embedded within the institution.
It is this power dynamic between the institution and the tutor that I am calling the ‘elephant in the room’ – a critical yet often overlooked factor in creating the conditions for psychological safety. Simply put, if tutors do not feel psychologically safe in their roles, how can they be expected to feel supported, empowered, and enabled to foster a safe and inclusive learning environment for their students?
Tutors are often seen as the primary architect of the students’ learning experience. And whilst this is largely true, it seems that there is a slight misalignment, in that whilst they may be the architects, they aren’t the only people involved in the construction of the full experience. This perception places an enormous burden and responsibility on tutors, who must somehow embody institutional values while navigating their own position within the organisational hierarchy. A tension that one student, when asked to think about that, in my final interview, summed up perfectly by saying :
It’s not easy because you know it’s… you know, it’s not really down to individuals who aren’t nice enough. It’s the whole system is built around having to meet certain things and the people are just a function of this machine that’s bigger than them. And and then that’s and then you end up, you know, trying to do care against the machine, which I think our tutors were to some extent as well and they were getting, like, mangled in the cogs between the humans and the machinery.
Student C
With this on my mind, it was somewhat fortuitous when the annual Staff Survey email landed in my inbox. As I was completing it, a few key questions stood out to me with my psychological safety hat on:
- I feel I can be my true self at work
- I feel that my background, difference and lived experience is valued at the University
- I feel able to speak up and challenge the way that things are done
Feeling intrigued, I quickly searched to see if I could find the Staff Survey results for 2023. The results were shocking (at least to me).
The lowest positive response (38%) is for “I feel able to speak up and challenge the way that things are done,” which indicates a significant barrier in staff feeling empowered to voice concerns or critique processes.
For the statement “I feel that my background, difference and lived experience is valued at the University,” the UAL result (50%) trails significantly behind the HEI (-21% difference) and the London HEI benchmark (-16% difference).
Only 38% of staff feel able to ‘speak up and challenge the way that things are done’, with a high negative response rate (33%) compared to other categories.
This brings us to a crucial question: How can we expect tutors to create psychologically safe spaces when they themselves might not feel secure within the institution? Especially if we take serious Amy Edmondson’s definition, psychological safety means “freedom from fear, embarrassment, or humiliation” – which seems perhaps unlikely given the staff survey results. The reasons are manifold:
- Precarious employment conditions
- High expectations for student support and student satisfaction
- Limited institutional backing
- Unclear policies and procedures
- Feeling unheard and not listened to.
This raises crucial questions about how institutions can better support both staff and students. The next steps involve translating these insights into practical strategies that enhance psychological safety across all levels of online education.