Peer-Authored Guidance for the Hidden Curriculum: A Mixed Methods Case Study of a Student-Co-Created Survival Guidebook in an English for Professional Communication Diploma

The guidebook examined in this paper is a peer-authored resource produced by students in a diploma programme in English for professional communication at a public university in Malaysia, developed as their Final Year Project (FYP); this paper reports an exploratory mixed-methods case-study evaluation of it, integrating its qualitative and quantitative strands through a joint display. A qualitative content analysis of responses from 31 current students and recent graduates identified six recurring transition concerns, most prominently campus and residential adjustment and the acquisition of non-graded professional competencies; a joint display links each concern to the guidebook section it informed and to the post-survey item that subsequently evaluated that section. A descriptive product evaluation of 63 readers, current students, prospective (high school) students, and parents or caretakers, found high perceived utility of the finished guidebook overall (mean agreement 97.7% across 17 items), alongside two more informative internal patterns: a group difference in perceived relatability that was largest between students and high-school respondents but not strictly monotonic with distance from the lived programme experience (parents agreed more than high-school respondents on this item), and an inverted pattern on one item in which parents rated the guidebook's transferable value most highly. An exploratory comprehension-versus-confidence pattern in the results suggests that the guidebook may build understanding of institutional expectations more readily than confidence in acting on them, particularly around communication with lecturers, though the descriptive, single-institution design means this pattern is best treated as hypothesis-generating rather than confirmed. These findings speak to the pedagogical value of peer-authored resources within the hidden curriculum, an underexamined niche in the students-as-partners literature on English for Specific Purposes and English for Academic Purposes programmes; student agency among the guidebook's own authors is discussed here as a theoretical interpretation rather than as an outcome this evaluation directly measured, and such guidebooks are best understood as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, direct peer or lecturer contact.

peer-authored resources; hidden curriculum; student agency

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