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Sum, Kiu, Buckley, Carina and Syska, Alicja (2026) Designing an inclusive toolkit to empower Early Career Academics in their educational practice. Educational Developments, 27 (2). pp. 19-21. ISSN 1469-3267
Early Career Academics (ECAs) occupy a critical yet often uncertain space within Higher Education (HE). While establishing their teaching identities, managing heavy workloads, and negotiating shifting institutional expectations, ECAs must also support increasingly diverse student cohorts, with some struggling with the demands of academic writing. The rapid growth of generative AI technologies has further highlighted these pressures, challenging ECAs to rethink teaching and assessment practices at a moment when institutional clarity was still forming.
This article presents findings from a research project funded through the SEDA Research and Evaluation Small Grants 2024-25 scheme. The project aimed to understand ECAs’ experiences of supporting student writing during the transition to AIenabled learning environments and to suggest ideas to develop an inclusive and adaptable toolkit tailored to ECAs’ needs. Grounded in qualitative interviews and focus group data, the study explored ECAs’ perspectives on writing development, academic integrity, institutional expectations, and the practical realities of teaching during technological disruption.
Our findings show that while concerns about AI shaped ECAs' immediate challenges, the deeper issues related to communication, student confidence, inclusive practice, and uneven institutional support. These concerns informed three key principles for the development of a sustainable toolkit for ECAs: the centrality of clear and relational communication, the need for genuinely inclusive pedagogies, and the importance of collective knowledge-building within and across academic communities.
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