Academic relationships shape first-year students’ access to learning
Updated Aug 18, 2026
Students can sit in the same lecture and feel they have completely different levels of access to the subject. The difference may be relational: whether a lecturer makes uncertainty safe, a teaching assistant translates expert language, or peers make basic questions easier to ask. Laura Cordes Felby, Rikke Trige Jensen and Mathilde Fibiger's Studies in Higher Education paper, "The stars, compass, and anchor: how relationships shape first-year students’ perception of their access to disciplinary content", shows how those relationships can open disciplinary knowledge or quietly close it off. For universities using student voice to understand first-year experience, the paper offers a useful shift: relationships are not only sources of support, but part of whether learning feels accessible to students.
Context and research question
Starting university means learning more than new subject matter. Students also have to work out whose expertise to trust, where it is safe to admit confusion, what good participation looks like, and whether they can become a legitimate member of the discipline. Those judgements develop through everyday contact with teaching staff and peers, so academic and social integration are difficult to separate. This is also why first-semester belonging can change around particular academic and social moments rather than following one smooth transition.
The study asks how academic relationships shape first-year students’ engagement with, and perceived access to, disciplinary content. It draws on interviews with 25 students aged 20 to 25 across ten programmes and all five faculties at a Danish university. The researchers interviewed students midway through their first and second semesters, using group interviews where possible and individual interviews when necessary. They then used reflexive thematic analysis, followed by a metaphorical reanalysis informed by Self-Determination Theory. The study examines perceived access to knowledge rather than testing learning outcomes, an important boundary for interpreting the findings.
Key findings
Lecturers acted like stars: authoritative and inspiring, but sometimes too distant to guide students clearly. Students valued visible expertise, enthusiasm, focused explanations, and lecturers who made it acceptable not to understand everything immediately. The same expertise became a barrier when lecturers assumed prior knowledge, prioritised nuance over foundations, or used specialist language without explanation. Approachability mattered because students were less willing to ask questions in large lecture halls or where frequent staff changes made relationships feel impersonal.
Teaching assistants acted like compasses, helping students translate disciplinary complexity into a route they could follow. In the Danish context, these were advanced students who often led practice sessions and group work. Participants valued their proximity to the student experience, their understanding of assessment expectations, and their ability to:
"turn professorial language into human language"
That position was also fragile. Ambiguous roles, distant behaviour, or uncertainty about an answer could reduce trust quickly. Teaching assistants therefore worked as both relatable peers and emerging academic authorities, which made role clarity and pedagogical support especially important.
Peers acted like anchors, providing stability while sometimes restricting participation. Supportive study groups shared notes, aligned expectations, combined different strengths, and made demanding material feel manageable. This reinforces wider evidence that friendship and collaborative study can shape belonging through ordinary course activity, not only through extracurricular life. Yet peers could also produce comparison, self-doubt, and a performance culture. Some students stayed silent because another student's advanced question made their own basic question feel unsafe.
Role alone did not determine whether a relationship helped. Lecturers, teaching assistants, and peers could each help or hinder autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Friendly but critically constructive relationships gave students room to test ideas, admit doubt, and become more confident participants. Poor communication, unclear expectations, or pressure to perform could lead to mental or physical withdrawal. The paper's central contribution is therefore relational: access to disciplinary knowledge is partly co-created through the social conditions in which students encounter it.
Practical implications
First, UK universities should treat academic accessibility as a relational question in transition feedback. Early pulse surveys and module evaluations should ask what makes it easier or harder to ask questions, understand expectations, and feel legitimate in the discipline. Open prompts such as "When did course content feel hardest to access?" can reveal whether the barrier is language, lecturer distance, peer culture, or uncertainty about where to seek help. The benefit is earlier diagnosis of barriers that a general satisfaction score would hide.
Second, institutions should define and support the teaching-assistant role more deliberately. Teaching assistants need clear boundaries, preparation in explaining difficult material, and an escalation route when they cannot answer confidently. Universities should also collect feedback on approachability, role clarity, and the usefulness of small-group teaching, rather than judging assistants only by content coverage. The payoff is more dependable guidance at the point where first-year students are most likely to need translation and reassurance.
Third, programme teams should design spaces where doubt and basic questions are legitimate. Smaller discussions, anonymous question channels, structured study-group expectations, and lecturers who model uncertainty can reduce the social risk of speaking. Personal tutoring can provide another trusted route for quieter students to raise academic concerns, especially when large-group teaching feels exposing. The practical gain is stronger participation from students who might otherwise understand less while appearing merely quiet.
Finally, Student Experience teams should analyse relational signals together rather than route them into separate silos. A comment about confusing teaching, an intimidating class, and weak belonging may describe one connected experience. Student Voice Analytics can help institutions distinguish recurring themes around lecturer access, teaching-assistant guidance, peer pressure, confidence, and academic belonging across open comments. That gives course teams evidence about which relationship needs attention and what kind of change is likely to help.
FAQ
Q: How can universities apply these findings to first-year feedback?
A: Ask about situations, not only outcomes. Alongside belonging or satisfaction items, invite students to describe when they felt able to ask a question, when an explanation became accessible, and when peer dynamics made participation easier or harder. Review those comments by programme and student group, then route repeated issues to the staff who can change teaching, tutoring, or study-group design.
Q: What methodological limits should institutions keep in mind?
A: This is a qualitative study of 25 volunteers at one Danish university, so it identifies mechanisms rather than estimating how common each experience is across higher education. Voluntary participation may also have attracted students with particularly strong views. The interviews covered ten programmes and all five faculties, but the findings should still be tested against local UK feedback. The study also measures students’ perceived access to disciplinary knowledge, not their assessed learning gains.
Q: What does the paper change about student voice practice more broadly?
A: It shows why institutions should not separate teaching, support, engagement, and belonging too quickly. Students may describe the same relational barrier through several survey categories, depending on the question they are asked. Analysing comments across those boundaries helps universities see whether students lack information, confidence, connection, or a safe route to admit uncertainty, which leads to more precise action.
References
[Paper Source]: Laura Cordes Felby, Rikke Trige Jensen and Mathilde Fibiger "The stars, compass, and anchor: how relationships shape first-year students’ perception of their access to disciplinary content" DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2026.2718800
Request a walkthrough
Book a free Student Voice Analytics demo
See all-comment coverage, sector benchmarks, and reporting designed for OfS quality and NSS requirements.
- All-comment coverage with HE-tuned taxonomy and sentiment.
- Versioned outputs with TEF-ready reporting.
- Benchmarks and BI-ready exports for boards and Senate.
UK-hosted · No public LLM APIs · Same-day turnaround