Anastasia Kennett

PhD Student

Research Degree Students

Contact Details

Anastasia is a full-time PhD student in the School of Education at the University of Worcester.

Anastasia’s main research interests is within inclusive educational practice and the ways in which students’ engagement can be improved utilising the concept of student voice and student-staff partnership programmes. Her PhD research is concerned with the development of the Universal Design for Learning Framework, particularly in relation to the incorporation of student voice and student self-authorship for students with additional needs within Higher Education. Anastasia’s previous undergraduate research dissertation (supervised by Dr Peter Gossman) explored the perceptions of students’ undertaking a student-staff partnership programme utilising an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology.

Prior to commencing her PhD, Anastasia has worked as a Student Research Partner on several research projects that were led by Dr Alexandra Sewell at the University of Worcester and was promoted to Lead student Research Partner in 2020. The first research was conducted in 2018 and utilised Solution Focused Approaches as a participatory method to improve student voice processes. Anastasia’s personal responsibilities were to conduct interviews with participants, take part in data analysis and undertake research dissemination in the form of a conference presentation and a written academic article, which has now been published. The following year, Anastasia undertook research exploring the mental ill-health of mature undergraduate students utilising photovoice elicitation and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Anastasia’s personal responsibilities were to undertake data analysis and contribute to a written academic article which is awaiting publication. Lastly, Anastasia has recently undertaken a lead student position to disseminate the findings of the mature student’s mental ill-health research in 2020 in the hopes of changing Higher Education practices to better support mature students’ mental ill-health. Anastasia’s personal roles were to present the findings to key stakeholders, create and manage awareness raising events and to present the findings at a conference. An academic journal article is also planned as an additional research dissemination process.

Anastasia has been a member of the Inclusion by Design Research Group since 2019 and as a student partner organiser for the first ever student voice conference in the Maghreb (Morocco) since 2020 which was led by the International Collaboratory for Leadership in Universally Designed Education (INCLUDE) and the International Conference on Education Quality (ICEQ). Anastasia has written about her experiences as a student partner organiser for the student voice conference in a poster presentation for the RAISE Partnership SIG in 2020 and can be found on the INCLUDE website (Realizing Students Inclusive Voice Potential Within a Blended Learning Space During Covid-19). Anastasia has also been accepted to write a further piece for the RAISE Journal regarding the impact of Covid-19 on Generation-Z students.

Anastasia, alongside Dr Seàn Bracken, has successfully applied for funding to enable participants to access the student voice conference through an online platform called Whova and Anastasia is very thankful to the University of Worcester for granting the funding that was needed. Anastasia is also very grateful to the University of Worcester for issuing her an Academic Scholarship for Achievement in both 2019 and 2020. The funded awarded to her has been gratefully received and will be used to support her progression onto the PhD. More recently, Anastasia has been honoured to receive the Graduate Award for Contribution to School Life and through her determination, she hopes to utilise the skills and knowledge that she has gained to continue to improve Higher Education practice.

In addition to working towards her PhD, Anastasia provides Guest Lecturing slots within Higher Education and conference appearances and is currently seeking employment as an Associate Lecturer and/or researcher in Higher Education. If you want any further information on any of the above, please contact Anastasia on the above email.

Anastasia’s supervisors are Dr Alexandra Sewell, Dr Seàn Bracken and Dr Peter Gossman.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/anastasia-kennett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anaskind2003