This paper argues that the widespread approach to enhancing student learning through separate study skills courses is ineffective, and that the term ‘study skills’ itself has misleading implications, which are counterproductive to learning. The main argument is that learning how to study effectively at university cannot be separated from subject content and the process of learning. The role of ‘study skills’ within universities’ skills frameworks, and as a component of students’ long-term development is discussed. Then, it is examined, with a focus on academic writing, what learning at university entails, and what is needed to support this learning. Finally, effective approaches to the enhancement of learning at university and beyond are considered.

Doing away with ‘study skills’

Research and experience tell us very forcefully about the importance of assessment in higher education. It shapes the experience of students and influences their behaviour more than the teaching they receive. The influence of assessment means that ‘there is more leverage to improve teaching through changing assessment than there is in changing anything else’ (Gibbs and Simpson 2004–5: 22). Tutors implicitly know the importance of assessment. Anecdotal experience tells us that, to a large extent, assessment activity in higher education is the learning activity. Students may take notes in lectures, seminars or from their reading, they may have been through the prescribed activities in laboratories or on field trips, but it is only when faced with assessment tasks that the majority seriously engage with that material. Tutors despair of trying to persuade students to undertake study which does not contribute in some way to their grades. Sadly, though, university assessment practice lags well behind its equivalent in the school sector (Murphy 2006), relying largely on a limited range of tried (but not always tested) methods. It is dealt with in an ad hoc way (Swann and Ecclestone 1999a) and the situation is not mitigated by the ‘amateur’ status of many academics regarding assessment (Ramsden 2003: 177). We learn the craft of assessment informally through being assessed ourselves and through being part of a community of practice, but lack scholarship regarding assessment (Price 2005). Undoubtedly, most of us have survived this approach to professional learning reasonably unscathed but it is not a recipe for enhancement; it provides no reliable route for ensuring that research on assessment reaches those doing the assessing.

Developing Effective Assessment in Higher Education: A Practical Guide

Growing concerns about retention and attrition rates in a mass and increasingly marketised higher education system have encouraged the idea that ‘meeting learner needs’ should be a key focus for institutional attention. It is suggested that this approach is unrealistic, however, because of the extent of the diversity which it attempts to respond to. An alternative response is to move away from the individualised focus on needs, deficits and ‘support’, towards a consideration of ‘activities, patterns of interaction and communication failures’, in relation to higher education pedagogical cultures. This move reconceptualises the idea of ‘barriers to learning’, attempting to understand how more subtle aspects of higher education pedagogical cultures may themselves be creating conditions which make it difficult, or even impossible, for some students to learn. Deliberately forging a middle path between conventional and radical approaches to pedagogy, the article attempts to identify examples of ‘older’ values a...

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Pedagogies for diversity: retaining critical challenge amidst fears of ‘dumbing down’

Higher education (HE) participation has expanded dramatically in England over the last half century; however, access to HE amongst particular groups of students remains a major policy concern. This report makes use of newly linked administrative data to better understand the determinants of participation in HE - and participation in high status universities - amongst those facing socio-economic disadvantage, those from poorly educated families and ethnic minorities. It is unique in being able to follow a particular cohort of children (all state school children in England in Year 11 in 2001-02) from age 11 right through to HE participation at age 18 (in 2004-05) or age 19 (in 2005-06).

The findings documented in this report show that while there are large raw gaps in HE participation rates by socio-economic status, these differences disappear once controls for prior attainment are included. This suggests that it is not barriers arising at the point of entry into HE (e.g. borrowing constraints) that are most problematic, but poor attainment in secondary schools. Indeed, if results can be improved between age 11 and age 16, those from poorer backgrounds are at least as likely to go on to university as their more advantaged peers. By contrast, most ethnic minority groups are now significantly more likely to participate in HE than their White British counterparts.

Widening Participation in Higher Education: Analysis using Linked Administrative Data

This article presents empirical research exploring adult students' transition to higher education (HE) through a program designed to enable that transition. Wenger's Communities of Practice theory has been applied to informal adult learning by Merriam, Courtenay, and Baumgartner (2003), who suggested its potential for understanding formal education. Using this theoretical framework, adults' transition to HE is explored in terms of learning, participation in practices, and identity. Students were interviewed, and qualitative data analysis revealed that although they perceived themselves to be peripheral participants in the community, university regulations, and academic procedures sometimes undermined their feelings of legitimacy. Their experiences of the community's practices were mediated by individual, shifting identities and a sense of belonging. Their experiences are discussed in terms of the power of practice to include or exclude, and the concomitant identity shifts which may lead to fuller particip...

The Transition of Adult Students to Higher Education: Legitimate Peripheral Participation in a Community of Practice?:

It is suggested that the pedagogical implications of the British government's policies of widening access and increasing participation have not yet been widely explored in the literature on teaching and learning in higher education. Studies that discuss student learning processes seem to focus either on the development of generic skills, or on psychological approaches, whilst studies of 'the student experience' are mostly concerned with wider, contextual issues as these apply to mature students. This paper reports on a small-scale research project that investigated the study experiences of a group of 17/18-year-old students from families with no history of participation in higher education, following the students from the beginning of their 3-month access course to the end of their first semester at university. Possible implications of themes from the data are then discussed in the light of the changing nature and purpose of higher education in the UK.

Tamsin Haggis

Papers

Trying to be Motivated: perspectives on learning from younger students accessing higher education