Category: Reflections

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.

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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.

From research to practice

Creating the conditions for psychological safety to emerge for students and tutors requires action at the institutional level. It’s not merely about student experience – it’s about creating an environment where everyone feels secure enough to contribute, challenge, and grow.

This might look like asking ourselves the following questions:

1. How do our policies and practices impact tutor psychological safety?
2. What concrete steps can we take to support both tutors and students?
3. How can we better align our institutional values with daily educational practice?

My ARP has revealed that psychological safety isn’t just about creating comfortable spaces – it’s about building environments where students feel empowered to take creative risks, experiment with new ideas and grow both artistically and personally.

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Rewarded vulnerability

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.

Brené Brown

This powerful statement resonates deeply with the essence of arts education, where articulation of creative voice often requires embracing vulnerability. The act of sharing creative work is inherently vulnerable. Students don’t just share assignments – they share pieces of themselves, their perspectives, and their lived experiences. My research has highlighted the delicate balance between encouraging sharing and respecting personal boundaries. When students feel psychologically safe, they’re more likely to engage in:

• Authentic creative expression
• Constructive peer feedback
• Risk-taking in their artistic practice
• Open dialogue about their creative process

Challenging power dynamics

The challenge lies in ensuring that we create environments where students can integrate their lived experiences without fear of their identity being displaced by the bodies that seek to de-voice anyone posing a ‘threat’ at the periphery of institutional whiteness (Ahmed, 2012).

Inspired by Maha Bali’s (2023) praxis of intentionally equitable hospitality (IEH) which focuses on intentionality in ‘fostering learner/participant agency within the learning space, while never forgetting the ways in which power and oppression work outside of that learning space, and how they influence it’, I envision implementing these insights through several key approaches:

Curriculum design:

• Building structured opportunities for low-stakes sharing
• Creating a clear distinction between ‘eager’ and ‘expected’ sharing
• Incorporating reflection points about psychological safety as a value
• Designing assessments that value process as much as product
• Supporting and rewarding vulnerability in creative arts practice
• Reframing failure as a valuable part of learning
• Creating spaces where diverse lived experiences are valued

Institutional changes:

• Embedding psychological safety in course documentation (validation?)
• Developing staff training around creating safe spaces
• Establishing clear support frameworks for both students and tutors
• Creating feedback mechanisms to monitor psychological safety

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Final thoughts

As we continue to develop online learning spaces, we must remember that psychological safety isn’t just a concept to be studied – it’s a practice that must be deliberately embedded at every level of our educational institutions. Only by supporting those who support our students can we create truly effective learning environments.

Creating truly psychologically safe learning environments requires ongoing commitment and action at all levels – individual, departmental, and institutional. It is everyone’s responsibility. The challenge ahead lies in ensuring that our commitment to psychological safety moves beyond rhetoric to become embedded in every aspect of our educational practice.

It is my hope that explicitly focusing on building psychological safety will ‘build cultures which positively foster a strong sense of community and belonging’ (Hubbard and Gawthorpe, 2023), where students feel comfortable to take creative risks and are not afraid to share their thoughts, opinions or work with their tutor or peers.

References

Ahmed, S. (2012) On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press.

Bali, M. and Zamora, M. (2022) ‘Intentionally Equitable Hospitality as Critical Instructional Design’, in Quinn, J., Burtis, M., Jhangiani, S. and Denial, C.J. (eds) Designing for Care. Hybrid Pedagogy Incorporated. Available at: https://pressbooks.pub/designingforcare/ (Accessed: 12 September 2024).

Brown, B. (2012) Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Hubbard, K. and Gawthorpe, P. (2024) The Inclusive Higher Education Framework, Inclusive Education Framework. Available at: http://www.inclusiveeducationframework.info/ (Accessed: 16 Decmeber 2024).