The University of WA student guild is working to introduce “trigger warnings” to alert students to course content they could find emotionally distressing.

Minutes from a recent guild meeting reveal students have been in discussions with university staff about introducing formal warnings before lectures which contain material that “students may find triggering”.

The minutes said the guild hoped to offer trigger warnings at the start of lectures or classes, or within a unit outline, as early as next year.

Guild president Megan Lee told the meeting that warnings sometimes took place for criminal law lectures that included discussion of sex crimes, but they were not applied consistently across the university.

No one from the guild was available to comment yesterday.

The UWA confirmed the student guild had recently approached it about the subject of content warnings, but said it was yet to consider its response.

The worldwide trend towards using trigger warnings, which aim to protect people who have previously experienced trauma by allowing them to prepare themselves before viewing distressing content, has been criticised for over-protecting students.

Victoria’s Monash University last year became the first Australian institution to implement formal trigger warnings in course guides, though academics at other institutions have used them on an ad-hoc basis.

Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Matthew Lesh said formalising trigger warnings could encourage academics to avoid challenging topics and there was scant evidence that they had their intended effect of helping students with emotional issues.

“Some recent research out of Harvard University found that trigger warnings actually increased people’s emotional reactions,” he said.

More broadly, Mr Lesh said trigger warnings could encourage students to avoid dangerous ideas.

“In the real world there are no trigger warnings,” he said. “You need to be willing to expose yourself to difficult ideas in order to grow intellectually.”