CRADLE Seminar Series: A house of cards? Equity-group students’ experiences of university

The Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), at Deakin University, is a global leader in higher education research, connected to the University’s own teaching and learning agenda. CRADLE undertakes and disseminates groundbreaking research on assessment and digital learning. This research has – and continues to – influence teaching and learning across the higher education sector.

In this seminar, number 9 in the Centre’s 2024 series, CRADLE researchers Dr Joanna Tai, Dr Nicole Crawford and Professor Rola Ajjawi offer an overview of findings from a qualitative longitudinal study investigating undergraduate equity-group students’ day-to-day experiences in negotiating their life, work and learning at Deakin University. Thirty-five students took part in a series of four interviews from June 2023 to July 2024, resulting in a total of 123 in-depth interviews.

In this seminar, they offer an overview of findings from the project with a focus on moments of precarity, success, and failure, and implications of this work for research, policy and practice in higher education.