Hidden impacts of precarity on teaching: effects on student support and feedback on academic writing

Abstract

Research on precarity in higher education has focused on how academics themselves experience this, but less is known about how staff precarity affects teaching and learning. This extended literature review explores how precarious working conditions affect practices aimed at supporting students’ writing, such as teaching discipline-specific writing, providing feedback on drafts, and giving guidance about plagiarism and the use of AI. The most significant factors in academic malpractice relate to the quality of teaching and learning, but little time is spent inducting students into the norms of disciplinary knowledge creation, and this is exacerbated by precarious working conditions for subject
lecturers. Teaching academic writing and referencing often falls to sessional English language or academic skills tutors, who lack time or disciplinary knowledge to deal with malpractice. These manifestations of precarity, affecting both casualised subject lecturers and academic support tutors, are likely to mean fewer opportunities for students to develop their writing skills and engage with knowledge in meaningful ways