Session Outline

Workload, Stress, and Well-being: A Human Factors Script for Personal Tutoring

Frank Alparslan (University of Northampton)

Student distress often appears first as changes in behaviour rather than direct disclosure: missed sessions, reduced participation, sudden lateness, or a change in tone. Personal tutors may hesitate because they are not mental health professionals, and because conversations can feel high-stakes. This lightning talk shares one practical tool inspired by aviation psychology and human factors: a 2-minute tutoring script that helps tutors check stress and workload quickly, communicate safely under pressure, and agree clear next steps without “diagnosing” or over-promising.

The script has three parts: (1) reduce pressure and create psychological safety (“You’re not in trouble; I just want to understand what’s making things hard right now”), (2) check workload and stress signals using simple prompts (sleep/fatigue, competing demands, concentration, deadlines), and (3) act proportionately using a traffic-light next-step guide (self-management support, follow-up, or signposting/escalation). The talk ends with practical phrases tutors can copy, plus a one-page prompt guide that delegates can adapt to their own support services and safeguarding routes.

Audience involvement is light-touch: a 30-second reflection prompt and a quick “choose your next step” poll using a vignette. Questions can follow at the end of the lightning talk set.

Embedding Wellbeing into Personal Tutoring: A Preventative, Practice-Led Approach

Jennifer Stockdale (University of Nottingham)

The prevalence of mental health issues among university students continues to rise to record levels, making the development of resilience and self-efficacy as important as disciplinary knowledge. Within higher education, student resilience is closely associated with academic outcomes, engagement, and continuation. Employers also increasingly value personal attributes alongside knowledge and skills, with resilience, flexibility, and agility highlighted as key future skills in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report.

This Lightning Talk presents an evidence-informed approach to embedding growth mindset and wellbeing principles within a Foundation Science skills module and its associated student-centred personal tutoring framework at the University of Nottingham.

Tutorials were deliberately structured into two complementary strands: academic group tutorials and pastoral tutorials. Academic tutorials focused on skills development and academic advising, while pastoral tutorials provided structured opportunities for reflection, discussion, and wellbeing-informed conversations. This clear separation enabled tutors to support student wellbeing in ways that were purposeful, inclusive, and professionally bounded, while remaining academically legitimate and non-stigmatising.

Central to the redesign was supporting students to develop a growth mindset, encouraging them to view challenges and setbacks as opportunities for learning and development. Tutors adopted a developmental advising approach, guiding students to take responsibility for their learning by reflecting on behaviours and study strategies, and by evaluating what worked for them individually. Reflection activities across both academic and pastoral tutorials fostered self-awareness, confidence, and problem-solving skills—key contributors to student wellbeing, belonging, and academic success.

Rather than teaching wellbeing interventions didactically, students developed core academic and transferable skills (such as evaluating research, referencing, and creating infographics) while engaging with scholarly literature on wellbeing. This approach supported the development of mental health literacy and awareness of accessible, non-pharmacological wellbeing strategies (including sleep, physical activity, and nutrition), without the resistance often associated with sessions explicitly labelled as “mental health”.

Students’ resilience was measured at two time points (October and May) using the Resilience Scale for Young Adults, assessing sense of mastery, sense of relatedness, and emotional reactivity, alongside questions on growth mindset and lifestyle behaviours. Findings suggest a positive effect of the curriculum- and tutoring-based intervention, including increased sense of relatedness and reduced emotional reactivity—outcomes closely aligned with students’ sense of mattering, connection, and persistence.

This session will demonstrate how personal tutoring and academic advising can act as effective preventative wellbeing interventions when embedded within routine academic practice. Delegates will leave with practical examples of tutorial structures, reflective prompts, and evaluation approaches that can be adapted to their own contexts, offering a scalable and sustainable model for supporting student wellbeing while remaining firmly grounded in academic development.

Developing non-cognitive skills in foundation students

Jen Jen (MMU)

Non-cognitive skills are considered more important than IQ for life success and attainment (Heckman & Kautz, 2012). Non-cognitive skills are sometimes referred to as character skills or social and emotional skills as they are a set of attitudes, behaviours and strategies including self-regulation, motivation, social skills, creativity and perseverance (Gutman & School, 2013). Better non-cognitive skills are linked to increased psychological well-being and mental health (Cuesta & Budría, 2015), they not only predict educational and occupational outcomes but also contribute to overall life satisfaction (Heckman & Kautz, 2012).

Despite their importance, formal teaching of non-cognitive skills is largely absent from universities. VESPA is a research-driven framework that develops the essential non-cognitive skills every student needs for academic success. Each pillar represents a crucial dimension that predicts student achievement: vision, effort, systems, practice and attitude. VESPA is used extensively in sixth form colleges in the UK and internationally. It focuses on developing students' academic skills and mindsets to increase engagement, motivation and ultimately academic attainment.

This talk will outline the integration of VESPA into a level 3 (foundation year) module via weekly activities. Additionally, one to one VESPA coaching was also offered a subgroup of 20 level 3 students. VESPA coaching involves students meeting with someone who is trained in the VESPA approach to discuss their non-cognitive strengths and areas for improvement, with clear goals for their academic work. The evaluation plan will also be outlined in the presentation; the VESPA questionnaire will be administered several times throughout the academic year. Although only time 1 (start of academic year) and time 2 (before the Christmas break) will be discussed in the session as the final data will not available until later in the summer.

Learning Outcomes

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