Re-thinking Widening Participation – the “ReWP project”

Project leaders: Laurence Lasselle and Fabio Aricò (School of Economics and Finance)

This project focuses on the theme of Widening Participation in Higher Education. It investigates ways towards a fairer access to Higher Education and ways to foster widening participation in Higher Education. It aims to assess to which extent wider participation to tertiary education is beneficial to young people and society.

The project targets young people engaged in Higher Education (HE). It differentiates between students coming from “traditional backgrounds” (affluent family, parent(s) with a degree, etc.) and students from “non-traditional backgrounds” (low income family, parents with low educational attainment, households living in deprived areas, etc.). The project also targets young people who are not currently engaged in HE, in particular those who wish to continue their studies after leaving secondary school and those who do not aspire to HE despite their abilities.

The research agenda articulates in two fundamental steps. First, the project will identify the barriers to HE faced by prospective students. Second, it will analyse the transition from secondary school to the first labour market destination of students coming from non-traditional backgrounds. The first step addresses the first of the project’s aims: seeking ways to grant fairer access to HE. The second step addresses the second aim of the project; that is to explain in which ways HE makes a difference to students coming from non-traditional backgrounds.

The award of a university degree offers considerable benefits, not only to single individuals but also to society.  Graduates have the opportunity to gain higher lifetime earnings and better job opportunities. However, from a macroeconomic perspective, the average educational attainment of a nation indicates the qualification level of its labour force. The higher the educational attainment, the more skilled the labour force, the higher productivity and national income. A wealthier economy, in turn, generates higher participation of the population in education. Since education is often considered as an investment, it has both costs and returns. However, some of these are not purely economic. “Some of these returns are monetary and directly related to the labour market, while others are personal, social, cultural and more broadly economic.” (OECD, 1996, p. 9).  These considerations also open a debate on how HE is funded. If the returns to the individuals largely exceed returns to society, it is questionable whether the government (in other words, the taxpayers) should pay to subsidise access to HE for a minority of the population.

Not everyone participates to HE and not everyone has access to HE; this fact is particularly evident in the UK. Although participation in HE in the UK has been rising rapidly in the past two decades, it is still low compared to other European countries, like Finland, France, or Germany. In addition, this increase in participation has not been distributed equally among all. Students belonging to a privileged background are more likely to continue their education at university. However, attending university is perceived from the public and from the policy-makers as a “primary driver of upward mobility”. In other words, participation in HE seems to offer students coming from a non-traditional background the opportunity to improve their prospective social and economic status. For this reason, widening participation is currently considered as a major policy issue in the UK.

The “widening participation agenda is predicated on the notion that particular social groups, defined by social class or ethnic background, are unfairly under-represented in HE” (Gorard, 2008, p. 421). By encouraging the participation of these groups in HE through specific programmes or grants/loans, policy-makers foster participation, allowing upward mobility. However, at a time of austerity in public budgets, this agenda needs to be reviewed and be contextualised in a new framework. Moreover, since HE policies are not restricted to the decisions of Westminster, all Scottish stakeholders, and the University of St Andrews in particular, have to actively re-think WP.

By bringing together researchers and practitioners belonging to our University, the ReWP project encourages collaboration, dialogue and debate not only within our Institution, but also with all stakeholders in Scotland and beyond. It seeks to allow our Institution to move towards a better informed and evidence-based decision-making in terms of access and participation to the St Andrews experience.

ReWP is based on the idea that more research is needed to analyse the trajectories of universities students, i.e.:

(i) from the moment students prepare to leave secondary school and apply to university,

(ii) all across their experience as undergraduate (and/or postgraduate) students,

(iii) to their first employment destination after leaving the academic environment.

Within this framework, the project aims to identify students coming from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds, and compare their experience with ‘traditional’ students. Thus, the project aims to uncover how the university experience is making a difference for the former, and formulate opportune forms of intervention to improve the closure of possible gaps between students coming from different backgrounds all over their progression from secondary school to higher education and the labour market.

The four objectives of ReWP:

1. To define a concept applicable to our Institution of “students coming from non-traditional backgrounds”. This concept will be based on factors related to the student’s social and economic background, as well as to geographical location.
2. To gather information about students’ trajectories, from the time of their application to St Andrews, across their university experience, and after the completion of their degree, analysing the outcome of their first labour market experience, or of their progression to postgraduate education.
3. To design opportune forms of intervention to attract students from non-traditional backgrounds and to support them over the course of their study
4. To promote debate, collaboration, and exchange of information across stakeholders.

References

Gorard, S, 2008, Who is missing from Higher Education, Cambridge Journal of Education, Volume 38, Number 3, September 2008 , pp. 421-437(17).

OECD, 1996, Education at a glance, OECD Publishing.

 

Investigation of student use of ebooks

Graeme Hawes (Library), Antje Kohnle (School of Physics and Astronomy)

Ebooks are becoming an increasingly important resource for undergraduate courses at the University of St Andrews. Ebook interfaces allow for different modes of interaction than using print books. This project researches scholarly use of ebooks by undergraduate students. The main aims are to better understand how students use ebook functionality and develop cognitive skills in their manipulation of ebooks for academic ends.

Methods include questionnaires looking at student use and attitude towards ebooks, video- and screen-capture of volunteers engaged in a short task involving ebooks, and follow-up interviews with the volunteers allowing students to reflect on their experiences.

This work forms Graeme Hawes' MSc project at the Robert Gordon University in Dundee, with a task set in a third-year physics module. It is planned to repeat similar work in other Schools to investigate discipline-specific differences in student use of and attitude towards ebooks, as well as continuing work in future years to monitor changes.

Inquiry-based learning in a first year biology laboratory class: impact on perceptions of research science

V Anne Smith & Morven C Shearer (School of Biology)

An inquiry-based laboratory practical has been running in first year biology since 2006-2007 (originally in BL1201 Molecular Biology, currently in BL1101 Biology I), where students are presented with a ‘mystery’: an agar plate with a patch of yeast growing red in the centre and white around the outside.  Students work in groups, because a main experience of this laboratory practical is the discussions surrounding decision-making in the scientific process.  The groups are provided with tools, toothpicks and fresh agar plates, and they design and then perform experiments to probe the phenomena of the red and white pattern of growth. The groups examine the results of their experiments one week later, when they can come to some conclusions about hypotheses proposed the previous week.  They discuss their results with other groups and are asked to develop a consensus model explaining the growth that is consistent with all groups’ results.

We are conducting an ongoing study on the impact of this practical on the students’ perception of science.  Before this practical, students are provided with pre-surveys that probe their opinions of research science: asking them to choose adjectives describing research science, answering true/false to a series of statements about the way science works, and querying them about their experiences in University practicals and how they believe these relate to research science.  The students are provided with post-surveys after the practical, which include all of the pre-survey questions plus additional questions about the practical they have just experienced.  We are comparing the pre- and post-surveys to determine if the experience of the practical has an affect on students’ perceptions of research science.  Additionally, as these surveys are being done over a number of years, we may be able to explore trends in the perceptions of science by first year students.

 

 

Influence of exposure to graphics-based computer simulation environment on perceptions of computer programming

V Anne Smith (School of Biology) & Ishbel Duncan (School of Computer Science)

Biology is currently become more and more computational, with the advent of fields like computational biology, bioinformatics, and systems biology.  As such, the biology student of the future will need to be conversant with computational techniques.  This study explores the perceptions of computer programming by Senior Honours Biology students, and whether exposure to a graphics-based computing environment influences these perceptions.

Senior Honours Biology students are exposed to a graphics-based computer simulation environment during a computer practical in the module BL4285, Complex Systems in Animal Behaviour. They are walked through the building of a simulation and then are asked to modify the simulation to answer questions about self-organised behaviour. Students are presented with surveys before and after the practical (pre- and post-surveys).  The surveys ask about their prior level of programming experience, probe their perceptions of computer programming through agreement/disagreement with a variety of statements, and present a series of problems where students must interpret text-based and graphics-based computer code. Students are asked to score their confidence in their answer for each problem. Changes in perception of computer programming, as well as changes in accuracy of problem answers and students’ confidence in their answers, is determined by comparison of paired pre- and post-surveys.  Because Senior Honours Biology modules have small class sizes, we are conducting this study over a number of years to build up numbers of subjects.

Clinical communication training research in Medicine

Anita Laidlow (School of Medicine)

This research can be split into 3 areas: 1) Understanding cognitive factors underpinning communication, 2) Teaching interventions and their effects and 3) Behavioural analysis of communication behaviour and the cognitive approach to communicating

Understanding cognitive factors underpinning communication

Several projects have investigated various aspects of this area including looking at the impact of ability to perceive facial micro-expressions, social anxiety and empathy affects clinical communication and attitudes towards communication skills teaching (internal grants).

Teaching interventions and their effects

Projects in this area have looked at specific facilitation techniques in group workshops, comparisons of different training techniques to improve clinical communication performance. There has also been some work in collaboration with Student Support Services aimed at anxiety related to communicating with others in a professional capacity.

Behavioural analysis of communication behaviour and the cognitive approach to communicating

This work has focussed on assessment methods in clinical communication including the use of computer software to test students’ abilities to understand and apply theories to a video interaction between a doctor and a patient. Other work has probed the ability of assessment techniques to pick up struggling students early to enable the provision of extra help. 

 

No mismatch but multiple matching? Developments in graduate work and employment

Shiona Chillas (School of Management)

Introduction: policy context and research focus

The expansion of higher education and the rising number of graduates in the Scottish labour market has prompted scrutiny of graduate work and employment from academics and policymakers alike (for example FSS 2006). Graduate destinations have become an important indicator of the effectiveness of education and skills policies and also of trends in the nature of work, often expressed in terms of numbers and types of mismatched graduates. If aspirations to create a knowledge economy in Scotland are to be realised, then analysis of the type of work that graduates do is also necessary. The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of increasing graduate numbers by empirically examining graduate job destinations and the utilisation of graduates in their work.

There are, however, a number of conceptual and methodological tensions in analyses of graduate work and employment. Firstly, it is by no means clear how graduate jobs should be defined. The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) provides a narrow definition: of the nine categories in the SOC, the professional category alone is definitively graduate (ONS 2000). The SOC(HE), by contrast, suggests that the range of graduate jobs is expanding in line with increasing graduate numbers. The model implies a hierarchy of graduate jobs with four categories labelled Traditional, Modern, New and Niche (Elias and Purcell 2004). The model, based on the presence of graduates in occupations, also indicates that a process of graduatisation is underway so that more occupations are now requiring degrees for entry. Secondly, there are claims that over-education or under-employment is the result of increasing numbers of graduates, with too many graduates chasing too few graduate jobs. Consequently there is debate on the type and level of employment suitable for graduates (the occupational mismatch) and a quantitative mismatch based on the use of qualifications and/or knowledge and skills (Dolton and Vignoles 2000; Sloane 2002). However, Sloane suggests that over-education may reflect differences in the level and types of skills that graduates possess. Thirdly, there is an argument that success in the labour market is based on social and interpersonal skills rather than – or at least supplementary to – codified qualifications such as degrees. Mismatch in these terms arises from the contention that the middle-classes are disproportionately advantaged in the labour market for graduates (Brown and Hesketh 2004). Finally, institution attended is also said to be a factor in success so that graduates from elite institutions are more likely to secure graduate traineeships or professional employment (Brown and Hesketh 2004).

Whilst these debates are instructive, they present a piecemeal approach by focusing on one aspect of the relationship between education and work. Notably, qualifications may function as signals of required knowledge and skills but are also used as screens to exclude the non-, or inappropriately qualified workers and, in certain circumstances, degree education is used as a proxy measure of ability (Warhurst and Thompson 2006). In this study the more usual problem of analysing supply and demand according to a list of graduate attributes is replaced by a focus on the occupations in which graduates are employed.

Research design

This study unpacks how the increased supply of graduates has been interpreted by occupations, employers and universities. It uses quantitative and qualitative methods to gather data on graduate work and employment. Two cohort surveys were distributed to former students of universities in Glasgow (Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian) approximately three years post-graduation. The surveys sought to establish graduate destinations, gather data on connections between education and work and the early careers of graduates. Response rates were 29% from Strathclyde and 19% from Glasgow Caledonian.

From the surveys five occupational case studies were selected for qualitative analysis in order to provide a deeper understanding of graduates’ experiences in work. An occupational reference point, it is argued, will contextualise degree requirements and utilisation of skills and knowledge. The selected occupations (chartered accountants, risk managers, active schools coordinators, building surveyors and environmental health officers) provide a broad spectrum of graduate employment. All the occupations studied are placed in the New category of the SOC(HE) although they are at different stages of professionalisation. Building surveyors and environmental health officers require specific degrees whilst the other three occupations do not stipulate the type of degree required. Fifty-nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduates, employers and professional bodies. Data is analysed thematically according to degree requirements, recruitment and selection, and work.

Findings

Findings from the two surveys reflect some of the tensions evident in existing research on the graduate labour market. Evidence for an occupational mismatch, it was found, is dependent on the model used to define graduate jobs. The value of conducting comparative surveys and analysis according to the SOC and SOC(HE) is also apparent. Some differences emerged between the two universities. For example 89% of respondents from Strathclyde were in SOC(HE) graduate categories and 85% from Glasgow Caledonian. Yet when the data is disaggregated by category, Table 1 shows that Strathclyde graduates were more likely to be in Traditional and Modern graduate occupations whereas those from Glasgow Caledonian are located largely in the New and Niche Categories.

 

Table 1: Occupational distribution of graduates by SOC(HE)

SOC(HE) category	Strathclyde (%)	Glasgow Caledonian (%)
Traditional	29	9
Modern	20	6
New	28	40
Niche	12	31
Non-graduate	11	15

 

Table 1 indicates that the type of work that graduates enter is different in the two universities. This patterning is supported by analysis according to the SOC where 55% of Strathclyde graduates were in Professional occupations and 48% of Glasgow Caledonian graduates were in the Associate Professional and Technical category. These findings imply that use of the SOC(HE) as a measure of graduate employment masks differences in the type of employment achieved by graduates of these two universities. The findings also confirm that a process of graduatisation is underway in Associate Professional occupations which, according to the SOC descriptors typically require vocational qualifications at sub-degree level (ONS 2000). It remains unclear however, why graduatisation is occurring. Graduatisation may indicate professionalisation projects and strategic occupational uplife in, for example, nursing and other health-related occupations.

It may, however, also indicate a general shift towards locating initial education in the university sector, prompted by expansion in higher education. The survey findings revealed that significant numbers of graduates (50% from Strathclyde and 64% from Glasgow Caledonian) had received no training or a short induction course in their present job. In addition, 43% from Strathclyde and 51% from Glasgow Caledonian had moved jobs at least once since graduation. Whilst this data may be interpreted as an overall reduction in occupational training, early career movement of graduates suggests that training is replaced by ‘job-hopping’ in order to acquire work experience.

The qualitative data addressed some of the questions raised by the surveys. If graduatisation is an emergent outcome of the expansion in graduate numbers, how is this manifest? Cross-case analysis was conducted according to pathways between education and work, gateways at recruitment and selection, and the transfer of knowledge and skills from the degree education to the work. It emerged that in the occupations with ‘open’ access, graduates tended to have relevant degrees. Risk managers all had a risk management degree, sports co-ordinators had sports degrees of one type or another and accountants either held accountancy or business-related degrees. Yet, it appeared that relevant degrees were a necessary but not sufficient condition for employment. For active schools co-ordinators, work experience was also required for entry. In all occupations, graduates reported that selection was designed to test social and interpersonal skills. This finding could indicate a weakness in selection techniques or it may be that such skills are required in work. Brown and Hesketh (2004) point out that as graduate numbers increase, the labour market is governed by positional competition so that social skills are used to select amongst otherwise equally qualified graduates. Recruitment via relevant degrees and selection on social skills imply that matching in the graduate labour market is more nuanced than an explanation based entirely on numbers of graduates and graduate occupations. Graduatisation may be prompted by the expansion of higher education but it is manifest in different ways. For the existing professions (building surveyors and chartered accountants), it appears to be retrospective. The other occupations studied have established links with higher education institutions in order to aid professional projects.

The foregoing, however, only presents a partial picture of change in graduate employment. Labour market segmentation may be evident at point of entry to jobs but the study showed that the transfer of knowledge cannot necessarily be ‘read off’ from a connected degree. For example, accountancy graduates were particularly scathing on the applicability of degree knowledge to their work. Although sports graduates all had connected degrees, those with sports science degrees were less positive on knowledge transfer than those with sport in the community degrees. Transfer for building surveyors was dependent on context of employment. There are, it appears, differences in perceptions of what graduates need to know and the extent to which universities and educators are willing or able to provide occupational knowledge. In addition, knowledge transfer seemed to be unrelated to position in the occupational hierarchy. Graduates in the professional category are not necessarily better matched than those in the manager or associate professional categories. Indeed risk managers were the most likely to report knowledge transfer in a variety of contexts. The difficulties in providing a ‘one-size fits all’ degree explain ‘job-hopping’ in early graduate careers. Employers require evidence that graduates can do the job which in turn means that they will require less training, although evidence of training is still apparent in accountancy and environmental health.

Skills transfer can be more easily generalised across occupations. Transfer of communication skills such as giving presentations and report-writing were reported by all graduates. Team-working was also said to be transferred, perhaps reflecting changes in assessment techniques within higher education. It is notable that the skills that graduates report that they use are precisely those skills that employers claim are lacking in their graduate employees (Allen and de Weert 2007). Graduates in all occupations also referred to the ‘confidence-boosting’ effects of having attended university, articulated in different ways. For some, confidence is expressed in terms of ‘knowing the jargon’, for others it involved ‘being able to interact with other professionals’. There are therefore some indicators that higher education equips graduates with the communication skills required in work.  

Multiple matching: changes in graduate work and employment

The findings in this study have methodological and theoretical implications for the study of graduate work and employment. It appears that conducting a comparison between graduate attributes and those that employers specify is less than successful for understanding how increasing numbers of graduates may produce change in the labour market. Upon entering the labour market graduates have different combinations of attributes which enable or constrain the type of employment they can, and will, achieve. Employers and occupations, on the other hand, are concerned with finding suitable graduates who will be ‘work-ready’ for a particular context. For some occupations work-readiness means stipulating a connected degree for entry. For others, degree education demonstrates a general level of relevant knowledge, requiring work experience to supplement the degree. Whether or not higher education is a form of training, employers appear to perceive it as such. Moreover, new universities, keen to attract undergraduates, are willing to create and deliver occupationally relevant degrees, particularly servicing associate professional and technical occupations. The provision of degrees targeted towards specific occupations may in turn enhance these new universities’ employability index in university rankings. The SOC(HE) may be inappropriately used for analysis of graduate employment. If data on destinations is disaggregated by category then it becomes clear that graduates are not entering ‘more of the same’ type of jobs, instead many of the new and niche jobs are a result of graduatisation. Such occupations might require graduates, and these graduates’ knowledge and skills may be used but the overall relative standing in the occupational hierarchy remains stable.

As a consequence, rather than there simply being a mismatch, ‘multiple matches’ may be occurring with the expansion in higher education and more graduates in the Scottish labour market. This multiple matching thesis resolves some of the debates in research on graduate employment by suggesting that different types of universities now service different types – and levels – of occupations, all of which though are now regarded as graduate jobs. In addition, multiple matching recognises that demand for graduates derives from different sources, producing varying connections between different degrees and occupations. Indeed matching in particular occupations is often accompanied by negotiation between professional bodies and university departments and forms an important aspect of professionalisation. Consequently, an intensified form of positional competition may be emerging in advance of entry to the labour market as universities and prospective students attempt to interpret future employment opportunities for graduates. In conclusion, the case study approach has been instructive in providing occupational reference points for the research, revealing that employment context influences connections between education and work. This approach, it is argued, will generate a platform for further research in other graduate occupations.

References

Allen, J. and de Weert, E. (2007) ‘What do educational mismatches tell us about skill mismatches?’, European Journal of Education, 42(1), pp.59-73.

Brown, P. and Hesketh, A. (2004) The Mismanagement of Talent, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dolton, P. and Vignoles, A. (2000) ‘The incidence and effects of over-education in the UK graduate labour market’, Economics of Education Review, 19(2), pp.179-198.

Elias, P. and Purcell, K. (2004) ‘Is mass higher education working? Evidence from the labour market experiences of recent graduates’, National Institute Economic Review, 190, pp.60-74.

Futureskills Scotland (FSS) (2006) The Graduate Labour Market in Scotland, Glasgow: Scottish Enterprise

Keep, E. and Mayhew, K. (2004) ‘The economic and distributional implications of current policies on higher education’,      Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 20(2), pp.298-314.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2000) Standard Occupational Classification 2000: Volume 1: structure and descriptions of unit groups, London: The Stationery Office

Sloane, P. J. (2002) ‘Much Ado about Nothing? What does the over-education literature really tell us’, Keynote address to the International Conference on Over-education in Europe, Berlin.

Warhurst, C. and Thompson, P. (2006) ‘Mapping knowledge in work: proxies or practices?’, Work, Employment and Society, 20(4), pp.787-800. 

 

A new multimedia resource for teaching quantum mechanics concepts

Antje Kohnle, Margaret Douglass, Tom Edwards, Alastair Gillies,  Christopher Hooley, Bruce Sinclair (School of Physics and Astronomy)

The aim of this project is to develop and evaluate a new resource for teaching quantum mechanics concepts, consisting of animations and animated visualizations (collectively called animations in what follows), each focusing on a particular difficulty. The project builds on the substantial number of studies into student difficulties and misconceptions in quantum mechanics, as well as our own lecturing experience. All animations are freely available at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~qmanim/, and can be run directly from the site as well as individually downloaded. The website includes password-protected instructor resources consisting of worksheets with full solutions. This project was funded by the UK Higher Education Academy as a Development Project 2009/10.

Overview of the animations

The animations created so far range from introductory and intermediate-level quantum mechanics. The animations were created in Adobe Flash. Calculations were performed using Mathematica and graphs then imported into Adobe Flash as a series of static vector curves. The animations have a small file size (typically 80 kB for 1D, and 2 MB for 3D animations) and only need Flash Player to run. All animations have a similar “look-and-feel” and are intuitive to use.

Key features of the animations that make them effective for learning include interactivity, emphasis on time-dependent behaviour, comparison with classical systems, animated step-by-step explanations of key points, and the adaptability to a variety of learning goals. The animations cover a range of topics including bound states in one- and two-dimensional potentials,  scattering, time-dependent phenomena, measurement, perturbation theory, spin and angular momentum and multiparticle wave functions. Each animation includes an “animation” tab and an animated “step-by-step exploration” tab. In the step-by-step exploration, users can click through a number of short explanations, each focusing on a single key feature, with animated highlighting of this feature in the graphs. We have focused on those parts of the animation that often cause students difficulties or are known areas of misconceptions.  

Evaluation

We used the animations in two St Andrews quantum mechanics courses, namely the level two Quantum Physics course (taken by students in their first or second year of study) and the level three Quantum Mechanics 1 course (taken by students in their second or third year of study). In the Quantum Physics course, students used two of the animations, the Potential Step and the Finite Well, in a one-hour workshop with set problems. In Quantum Mechanics 1, five of the animations were used in tutorial problems, and a number of animations were used in the lecture to promote discussion and visualize outcomes of calculations.

Evaluation consisted of a questionnaire on student use of and attitude towards the animations given to level three students, as well as a diagnostic survey administered to level two students in a pre- and posttest format as well as to level three students. Level two students were also asked to rate the animations they had used in the workshop in terms of their usefulness in improving understanding, and to comment freely on the animations.

On the whole, students were very positive about the animations, e.g. on a scale of 1 (not useful) to 5 (very useful) the average rating for the Finite Well animation was 4.1 (standard deviation 1.0), and 3.9 (standard deviation 0.9) for the Potential Step animation. One student comment was “They were incredibly useful. It's good to get "hands on" with what sometimes feels like a "hands off" topic.” The level three results were similarly positive. More critical comments pertained to the quantity and level of the explanations, and led us to critically review and amend the animation texts.

The diagnostic survey results showed that level 2 students outperformed level 3 students on four of the twelve questions in total. Of these four, the two highest outperforming questions were on the topics of the animations used in the workshop, namely the finite well (50% more correct responses at level two than at level three), and the potential step (38% more correct responses at level two than at level three). Level 3 students had not used these two animations. Thus, these results may indicate that using the animations had a positive effect on student understanding. However, the results only demonstrate short-term learning gains, as the posttest was administered shortly after the workshops, and the long-term effect on learning remains to be investigated.

Further information is available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/projects/detail/development_projects_2009/kohnle 

 

 

Engaging Postgrads and Postdocs

Morven Shearer (School of Biology, University of St Andrews), Anne Tierney (University of Glasgow) and Joy Perkins (University of Aberdeen)

For more details on this project, see the Higher Education Academy Bioscience Bulletin 11 (Summer 2010), pages 10-11, where two reports on the project are given, http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/ftp/newsletters/bulletin30.pdf.

 

 

What does really make students happy? NSS scores in the light of contextual data

Fabio R. Aricò and Alexandru D. Diaconescu (School of Economics and Finance)

Abstract

This research project is based on the assumption that student’s satisfaction is formed over an overall life experience, rather than over a mere academic experience. On this basis, the project advances the hypothesis that NSS (National Student Survey) scores constitute a biased way to rank learning and teaching effectiveness of higher education institutions. The project aims to account for this bias by re-interpreting the NSS scores in the light of contextual information (e.g. life-quality indicators) capturing elements of students’ life experience while at university. By estimating the relative impact of life experience components and academic experience components of student’s satisfaction, the results of this research can be used strategically to design opportune intervention to increase NSS scores. 

Introduction

Since the date of its introduction, in 2005, the NSS has become an important accountability document for a large number of British universities. On a yearly basis, the questionnaire composing the survey is administered to final-year students across the United Kingdom, allowing them to voice their opinions about their university experience from an academic perspective. The responses are representative of students’ overall university experience, as well as of the specific courses they are enrolled in.

The NSS scores are available to the public. Thus, the ranking generated from the NSS outcomes allows prospective students to compare across different universities on the basis of the effectiveness of the teaching and learning experience reported by previous students. Moreover, the NSS scores are also a principal component of the university league tables which provide to the public a ranking of universities based on a more composite index of excellence in both teaching and research activities. Increasing the amount of information available to the public, the NSS: (i) promotes the accountability of higher education institutions, and (ii) offers universities a valuable tool to asses and to raise public perception of their academic performance. In a more pragmatic way, NSS data provides feedback information that enables universities to promote policies designed to increase NSS scores and overall student satisfaction. However, since its creation, the NSS has not been object of thorough studies. The information provided by the NSS reports is often used in descriptive way. Great importance is attributed to students’ response on their ‘overall satisfaction’ with their university experience. However, very little investigation has been conducted on what specifically determines ‘overall satisfaction’.

Aims and objectives

1. This research proposal is based on the fundamental assumption that student’s satisfaction is affected by an overall life experience, rather than by a more restrictive dimension of academic experience. In other words, we believe that, in addition to academic factors directly related to learning and teaching effectiveness, the NSS ‘overall satisfaction’ indicator is influenced by non-academic factors affecting students’ life at university. Possible contextual factors that affect the NSS include: (1) location factors, such as climate; (2) social factors, such as presence of cultural diversity; and (3) governmental factors, such as local spending on infrastructures.

Applications

The estimation of the impact of life experience and academic experience determinants of student’ satisfaction allows addressing a series of important questions at university level, such as:

• What is the effect of an increased investment in IT facilities on the NSS score? (academic experience).
• What is the impact of an increase in the average cost of private-rented student accommodation? (life experience).

Moreover, the relative comparison of the impact of life experience versus academic experience factors could address more complicated questions, such as:

• Which university facilities could be provided to students to outweigh the distress caused by an increase in the cost of private-rented accommodation and keep NSS scores unchanged?
• Is there any other academic experience factor that is cheaper/easier to invest on in order to outweigh the increase in the cost of private-rented accommodation and keep NSS scores unchanged?

A similar analysis will also be conducted at national level to identify which life experience and academic experience factors display the strongest impact on NSS scores. Eventually, this information can be used by local and central authorities to identify the most efficient measures for policy-intervention.

 

 

A three-tiered approach that uses the process of research to enhance learning in the Solomon Islands

I. Fazey, M. Kesby, A. Evely (School of Geography and Geosciences) and others.

Greater recognition of the seriousness of global environmental change has led to an increase in research that assesses the vulnerability of households, communities and regions to changing environmental or economic conditions. So far, however, there has been relatively little attention given to how assessments can be conducted in ways that help build capacity for local communities to understand and find their own solutions to their problems. A research approach was designed and implemented in the Solomon Islands to promote inclusivity and participation in decision making and facilitate learning in remote communities. The process involved working collaboratively with a grass roots organization and training its members to conduct vulnerability assessments with communities using participatory and deliberative methods. To make best use of the learning opportunities provided by the research process, specific periods for formal reflection were incorporated for the three key stakeholders involved: the primary researchers; research assistants; and community members.

Overall, the approach: (1) promoted learning about the current situation in Kahua and encouraged deeper analysis of problems; (2) built capacity for communities to manage the challenges they were facing; and (3) fostered local ownership and responsibility for problems and set precedents for future participation in decision-making. While the local organisation and the communities it serves still face significant challenges, the research approach set the scene for greater local participation and effort to maintain and enhance livelihoods and wellbeing. The outcomes highlight the need for greater emphasis on embedding participatory approaches in vulnerability assessments for communities to benefit fully from the process.

For more information see http://www.citeulike.org/article/7284648

 

 

Teaching resilience and higher order thinking

I Fazey (School of Geography and Geosciences)

To appreciate, understand, and tackle chronic global social and environmental problems greater appreciation of the importance of higher order thinking is required. Such thinking includes personal epistemological beliefs (PEBs), or the beliefs people hold about the nature of knowledge and how something is known. These beliefs have profound implications for the way individuals relate to each other and the world, such as how people understand complex social-ecological systems. Resilience Thinking is an approach to environmental stewardship that includes a number of inter-related concepts and has strong foundations in systemic ways of thinking. This research  (1) reviewed literature on PEBs from educational psychology and explained why Resilience Thinking has potential to facilitate development of more sophisticated PEBs; (2) provided an example of a module designed to teach resilience thinking to undergraduate students in ways conducive to influencing PEBs; and (3) presented a pilot case study of evaluating its impact. Theoretical and preliminary evidence from the pilot evaluation suggests that resilience thinking underpinned by systems thinking has considerable potential to influence the development of more sophisticated PEBs. To be effective, however, careful consideration of how resilience thinking is taught is required. Finding ways to encourage students to take greater responsibility for their own learning and ensuring close alignment between assessment and desired learning outcomes are particularly important. 

For more information see: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art9/

 

 

Appropriate Format of Personal/Emotional Support Accessed by Students within the Modern Agenda of the “Portfolio Undergaduate”

Dr. Chris Lusk, University of St Andrews

The model of emotional support for over 40 years has been one of “Person-Centred Therapy” loosely based on the work of Carl Rogers.  Recently, factors have influenced the success of this approach, including financial restrictions, the ability of students to build a “portfolio of employability” collating extra-curricular activities and work experience, institutional accountability, “duty of care” issues and the semester format of university timetabling limiting the student ability to consistently focus on longer term therapy.  In 2003 the University of St. Andrews developed an alternative format of “Support Advising” which has seen a group of professional staff from diverse disciplines (medicine, social work, counselling, psychology, education needs) working together to provide short term, focussed individual and group work with students on a student-demand lead.  Various structural barriers had to be addressed: the renegotiation of the interpretation of “professional confidentiality”; the trust of the student in a system collectively owned; the removal of strict boundaries of time and response led to increased levels of staff burnout.

Current research undergoing compares the success of this project in terms of student feedback, staff satisfaction, quantitative analysis of attendance and non-attendance records and aims to offer advice on the use of the “Support Advising” approach to student support in an age where personal responses have arguably to be timely, directive and functional within the modern student life curriculum.  The central concept of institutional purpose is revisited, questioning the boundaries of responsibility of institutional care with personal, emotional support.

 

 

The Social Construction of the Mature Student Experience

Dr Chris Lusk, PhD. Doctoral Thesis, July 2008

Abstract

Using a Social Constructionist lens, this study gathers fresh empirical data on the experience of a “Mature Student”, examining its multiple constructions, both objective and subjective, within the context of a Scottish Ancient university.  For six centuries, Ancient universities have held expectations that incoming students will adjust to fit the autonomous institutional culture.  However the expansion of Higher Education in 1992 has introduced changes in legislation and funding which have shifted the onus of that adjustment to the organisations themselves. 

This study is placed at the fundamental core of the tension between an institution struggling with the changing nature of its purpose and non-traditional students with changing expectations.  Through analysis of daily journals and semi-structured interviews with 16 students and 12 staff, it explores the interpretations which both sets of actors take from student/institution interaction, and does so with respect to the student’s holistic life context rather than viewing only the learner role.  Particular emphasis is placed on the losses and gains from the experience, including examination of what a degree symbolises in personal, fiscal and psychological terms.

Based on a synthesis of literature reviews and empirical data, the study categorises the Mature students into three groups according to experiential themes within the student journey, drawing out theoretical and policy contributions from the process.  Although mismatches are shown to exist between student and staff expectations of institutional purpose, a contemporary, and valid, role for the Ancient institution is outlined in terms of developing individual agency.