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Case study: inclusion e-learning at King’s College London developed by Marshall

London19 Jul 2023Learning NewsMarshall E-Learning

How academics at King’s College London promote inclusion among students with digital learning.

Most of us know diversity and unconscious bias training as being initiated by human resource (HR) teams. But, at King’s College London, a group of academics from across the university got together to work with Marshall e-Learning to develop a bespoke inclusion course.

‘Professional Skills for a Globalised World’ (PSGW) is an online student training course that introduces participants to the value of diversity and helps them develop skills to create and sustain an inclusive working and learning environment. The course was introduced in 2019-20 for all students based in the King’s College London departments of War Studies, Chemistry, and Informatics. It has since been rolled our more widely across the university.

The e-Learning course:

• Encourages reflection on how the behaviour of individuals can promote or inhibit positive interactions across a diverse range of people
• Provides skills that enable participants to maximise the benefits, and minimise the challenges, of studying and working in a globalised, international environment
• Highlights that working effectively with people different from ourselves is a key skill in any workplace or learning space
• Directs participants to both internal and external ‘support and report’ options in the event they witness or are a victim of inappropriate behaviour

A collaboration between King’s College London and Marshall e-Learning

The course was written by Dr Elizabeth Black (Informatics department), Dr Helen Coulshed (Chemistry), and Dr Susan B Martin (War Studies), with input from a student advisory board and student focus groups. It includes scenarios based on real student experiences and was developed with students at all levels of study to ensure the content is authentic and resonates with the students at King’s.

The course also incorporates the experience of King’s staff and students through videos of individuals reflecting on the importance of diversity and the challenges of creating an inclusive environment.

The PSGW course has five sections:

1. Diversity and Inclusion
2. Managing our Biases
3. Words Matter
4. What Does All This Mean in Daily Life?
5. Rights, Responsibilities and Recourse

It is embedded within a Moodle learning environment page. On this page, students can access the course reading list, further reflective activities, suggestions for next steps, and ways to connect to other diversity and inclusion initiatives, as well as links to support and report options.

To measure impact and gather feedback, the page includes:

• A pre-course questionnaire with three attitudinal questions
• A post-course quiz that ensures participants have met the learning outcomes; students must achieve 100% on the quiz to receive a certificate of completion
• A post-course questionnaire that repeats the three attitudinal questions from before to measure the impact of the course on these attitudes
• A range of evaluation questions to enable iterative improvements to the course

Making a positive difference to student attitudes

During the two-year pilot, 3,639 students completed the course, and:

• 85% agreed that they would recommend it to another student
• There was a positive effect on student attitudes when comparing student responses to the three attitudinal questions before and after taking the course
• Both regular email reminders and integration with formal teaching programmes increased the number of participants who completed the course

Students were also asked what they took away from the course. Here’s a taster of their anecdotal feedback:

• “It has given me knowledge on how to work with people with different backgrounds and perspectives and why it’s crucial within a workplace”
• “The importance of fighting against implicit biases”
• “I found learning how to report and react to certain situations and events happening, such as a fellow classmate being bullied or harassed, the most useful”