Oral presentations and public speaking are an important aspect of the student experience in the United Kingdom higher education. Many modules (self-contained units normally within a programme of study) use presentations as a form of assessment and require students to verbally engage in small and large group settings to enhance learning. Previous research evidence has indicated that many students experience fear in public speaking. The aims of this qualitative survey were two-fold. First, it sought to gather further insight into the fears experienced and strategies used by students who fear public speaking, including oral presentations. The second objective was to determine whether their fear affected their experience of higher education. A qualitative survey comprising four open-ended questions was completed by 46 undergraduate and postgraduate students with a fear of public speaking from the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. All participants were attending one of the Stand Up and Be Heard (SUBH) UWE library-based workshops for fear of public speaking. Thematic analysis was used to identify the following six themes, namely: fear of being judged, physical symptoms, uncertainty about the topic, negative effect on university experience, practice and preparation, and more practical support needed. The results of this survey identify the specific fears students have in public speaking and provide evidence of the overall negative effect on their higher education experience. This survey provides further evidence that higher education institutions should acknowledge public speaking fear among some students and provide more support in oral presentation assessments.

significant body of information related to ethical approaches and well-established codes of conduct for different professional bodies (e.g., BPS 2018, UKRI) to guide research, we argue that it can be difficult to draw this information together, extract the key principles, and then apply them when guiding the setup and running of an emerging living lab.

An American surgical team has announced its intention to perform the first human facial transplantation. The team has, however, invited further analysis of the ethical issues before it proceeds and in this paper we take up that challenge in seeking to frame the debate with a particular focus on the recipients of the transplant. We address seven related areas of concern and identify numerous questions that require answers or, perhaps, better answers. We start by examining the nature of the procedure and its intended benefits, why the procedure is being developed, and whether or not this should be viewed as experimental. Having concluded that this is experimental in nature, we then consider the broad question, who is the patient? Here we perceive difficulties in terms of the autonomy of the recipient, the unpredictable effects of receiving the transplant, and the role and influence of society. We conclude by asking whether the question should be 'whether or not?' rather than 'when?', particularly while the risks of losing face appear to far outweigh the likelihood of gaining face.

Living Lab (LL) research should follow clear ethical guidelines and principles. While these exist in specific disciplinary contexts, there is a lack of tailored and specific ethical guidelines for the design, development, and implementation of LL projects. As well as the complexity of these dynamic and multi-faceted contexts, the engagement of older adults, and adults with reducing cognitive and physical capacity in LL research, poses additional ethical challenges. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 26 participants to understand multistakeholder experiences related to user engagement and related ethical issues in emerging LL research. The participants’ experiences and concerns are reported and translated into an ethical framework to guide future LL research initiatives.

Sustainable growth in the Allied Health Professions (AHP) workforce is an ambition of the United Kingdom’s NHS Long Term Plan. However historically, access to good quality placements has been a barrier to increasing pre-registration training numbers. This article focuses on work carried out by Health Education England (HEE) to gain insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on capacity. Using a pragmatic, embedded mixed-methods approach, insights were gathered using an online workshop, crowdsourcing, open for two weeks in the summer of 2020. AHP placement stakeholders could vote, share ideas or comment. Descriptive data were extracted, and comments made were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Participants (N = 1,800) made over 8,500 comments. The themes identified included: diversity of placement opportunity, improved placement coordination, a more joined-up system, supervision models and educator capacity. Alongside considering the challenges to placement capacity, several areas of innovative practice owing to the pandemic were highlighted. Generated insights have shaped the aims and objectives of the Health Education (HEE) pre-registration AHP student practice learning programme for 2020/2021 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the delivery of AHP placements. In the absence of face-to-face activities, crowdsourcing provided an online data collection tool offering stakeholders an opportunity to engage with the placement capacity agenda and share learning. Findings have shaped the HEE approach to short-term placement recovery and long-term growth.