Betwixt spaces: student accounts of turning point experiences in first year transitions

‘Not belonging’ is becoming a prevalent theme within accounts of the first-year student experience at university. In this study the notion of not belonging is extended by assuming a more active role for the idea of liminality in a student’s transition into the university environments of academic and student life. In doing so, the article suggests that the transition between one place (home) and another (university) can result in an ‘in-between-ness’ – a betwixt space. Through an interpretative methodology, the study explores how students begin to move from this betwixt space into feeling like fully-fledged members of university life. It is concluded that there is a wide range of turning points associated with the students’ betwixt transition, which shapes, alters or indeed accentuates the ways in which they make meaningful connections with university life. Moreover, transitional turning point experiences reveal a cast of characters and symbolic objects; capture contrasting motivations and evolving relationships; display multiple trajectories of interpersonal tensions and conflicts; highlight discontinuities as well as continuities; and together, simultaneously liberate and constrain the students’ transition into university life.

Student response to a pub quiz style first year psychology assessment

The deterioration in staff-student ratios in UK higher education has had a disproportionate impact on assessment and feedback, meaning that contemporary students may have fewer assessments and much less feedback than a generation ago (Gibbs, 2006). Early use of a quiz assessment may offer a blend of social benefits (social comparison, shared problem solving leading to engagement, belonging and continuation), academic benefits (early formative assessment, immediate feedback) and administrative benefits (on-the-spot verbal marking and feedback to 230 students simultaneously). This study sought student views on the acceptability and contribution to learning of the quiz. Social benefits were apparent but difficulties in creating questions to elicit deeper reasoning and problem solving are discussed and the quiz had limited pedagogic value in the eyes of participants. The use of assertion-reason questions are considered as a way of taking the table quiz to a higher level and extending its pedagogic value.

Laboratory focussed learning of core electronic engineering concepts in the first year of an honours degree programme

In common with most universities teaching electronic engineering in the UK, Aston University has seen a shift in the profile of its incoming students in recent years. The educational background of students has moved away from traditional Alevel maths and science and if anything this variation is set to increase with the introduction of engineering diplomas. Another major change to the circumstances of undergraduate students relates to the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 which has resulted in an increased likelihood of them working during term time. This may have resulted in students tending to concentrate on elements of the course that directly provide marks contributing to the degree classification. In the light of these factors a root and branch rethink of the electronic engineering degree programme structures at Aston was required. The factors taken into account during the course revision were:. Changes to the qualifications of incoming students. Changes to the background and experience of incoming students. Increase in overseas students, some with very limited practical experience. Student focus on work directly leading to marks. Modular compartmentalisation of knowledge. The need for provision of continuous feedback on performance We discuss these issues with specific reference to a 40 credit first year electronic engineering course and detail the new course structure and evaluate the effectiveness of the changes. The new approach appears to have been successful both educationally and with regards to student satisfaction. The first cohort of students from the new course will graduate in 2010 and results from student surveys relating particularly to project and design work will be presented at the conference. © 2009 K Sugden, D J Webb and R P Reeves.

First year qualifying report: neural networks for extracting wind vectors from satellite scatterometer data

The ERS-1 Satellite was launched in July 1991 by the European Space Agency into a polar orbit at about km800, carrying a C-band scatterometer. A scatterometer measures the amount of radar back scatter generated by small ripples on the ocean surface induced by instantaneous local winds. Operational methods that extract wind vectors from satellite scatterometer data are based on the local inversion of a forward model, mapping scatterometer observations to wind vectors, by the minimisation of a cost function in the scatterometer measurement space.par This report uses mixture density networks, a principled method for modelling conditional probability density functions, to model the joint probability distribution of the wind vectors given the satellite scatterometer measurements in a single cell (the `inverse' problem). The complexity of the mapping and the structure of the conditional probability density function are investigated by varying the number of units in the hidden layer of the multi-layer perceptron and the number of kernels in the Gaussian mixture model of the mixture density network respectively. The optimal model for networks trained per trace has twenty hidden units and four kernels. Further investigation shows that models trained with incidence angle as an input have results comparable to those models trained by trace. A hybrid mixture density network that incorporates geophysical knowledge of the problem confirms other results that the conditional probability distribution is dominantly bimodal.par The wind retrieval results improve on previous work at Aston, but do not match other neural network techniques that use spatial information in the inputs, which is to be expected given the ambiguity of the inverse problem. Current work uses the local inverse model for autonomous ambiguity removal in a principled Bayesian framework. Future directions in which these models may be improved are given.

Peer mentoring in higher education:a multidimensional approach to conceptualising the role of peer mentoring programmes in enhancing the first year undergraduate experience

Across the literature researchers agree that the concept of mentoring results in positive outcomes for both mentors and mentees alike (Enrich et al, 2004). From a pedagogical perspective, student focused mentoring activities in Higher Education are generally perceived to comprise dyadic or triadic relationships that encapsulate a diverse range of learning strategies and/or support mechanisms. Whilst there exists a significant amount of literature regarding the wider value of Peer Mentoring in Higher Education, there remains a notable gap in knowledge about the value of such programmes in enhancing the first year undergraduate experience and thus promoting a smooth transition to University. Using the emergent study findings of a large international project, a multidimensional conceptual framework bringing together the theoretical, conceptual and contextual determinants of Peer Mentoring is proposed. This framework makes a distinctive contribution to current pedagogical theory and practice – particularly in relation to the first year experience.

The sociological approach to teaching and learning in higher education with special reference to first year sociology courses at a technological university

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Reflective journals:can they be used to identify struggling students?

The ability to identify early failure in knowledge accquisition amongst students is important because it enables tutors to put in place suitable interventions to help struggling students. We hypothesised that if a reflective learning journal is a useful learning tool, there ought to be relationship between the type of journal entries and the depth of knowledge acquisition. Our research question is: can reflectiuve journals be used to identify struggling students? Previous work with reflective journals has not related the level of reflection with module outcomes obtained by the student. In our study, we have classified journal entries written by first year students in a foundationalprogramming module based on the SOLO taxonomy and compared this against the outcomes of two module assessments. Our results suggest that there is potential for using reflective journals to identify struggling stuidents in first year programming.

What difference a writing centre makes:a small scale study

Purpose – Academic writing is often considered to be a weakness in contemporary students, while good reporting and writing skills are highly valued by graduate employers. A number of universities have introduced writing centres aimed at addressing this problem; however, the evaluation of such centres is usually qualitative. The paper seeks to consider the efficacy of a writing centre by looking at the impact of attendance on two “real world” quantitative outcomes – achievement and progression. Design/methodology/approach – Data mining was used to obtain records of 806 first-year students, of whom 45 had attended the writing centre and 761 had not. Findings – A highly significant association between writing centre attendance and achievement was found. Progression to year two was also significantly associated with writing centre attendance. Originality/value – Further, quantitative evaluation of writing centres is advocated using random allocation to a comparison condition to control for potential confounds such as motivation.

Financial accounting:a practical introduction

Discussing the theory and the application of accounting methods in isolation does not enable the learner to fully understand the material and the key techniques, and get the practice required. This text is an effort to “put a face” on this problem. Learning financial accounting is like learning a different language and as such, lots of practice is required. Financial accounting is not particularly a popular subject among first year students. Students usually find the first year introductory financial accounting module quite challenging and demanding. Many lecturers are consistently asked to provide more questions and exercises. Attempting a large number of accounting questions provides students with the necessary self-assurance and familiarity required to deal with more difficult aspects of financial accounting.

Settling in:understanding the role and influence of parents on student transition to university

This paper will present details and findings to date collected as part of a research project currently being undertaken at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. The research focuses on the adjustment and experience of first year students and the role and influence of their parents and family during this time. In addition to Educational research literature, the research draws on “Emerging Adulthood” to assist in understanding the experience of students upon enrolling on a Higher Education degree. It is anticipated that the findings will contribute to the UK student retention debate as well as the adjustment literature.

Teaching and learning German language and culture in higher education in Britain:problems, challenges and didactical implications. A case study

The aim of this thesis is to explore key aspects and problems of the institutionalised teaching and learning of German language and culture in the context of German Studies in British Higher Education (HE). This investigation focuses on teaching and learning experiences in one department of German Studies in the UK, which is the micro-context of the present study, in order to provide an in-depth insight into real-life problems, strengths and weaknesses as they occur in the practice of teaching and learning German. Following Lamb (2004) and Holliday (1994), the present study acts on the assumption that each micro-context does not exist in vacuo but is always embedded in a wider socio-political and education environment, namely the macro-context, which largely determines how and what is taught. The macro-analysis of the present study surveys the socio-political developments that have recently affected the sector of modern languages and specifically the discipline of German Studies in the UK. It demonstrates the impact they have had on teaching and learning German at the undergraduate level in Britain. This context is interesting inasmuch as the situation in Britain is to a large extent a paradigmatic example of the developments in German Studies in English-speaking countries. Subsequently, the present study explores learning experiences of a group of thirty-five first year students. It focuses on their previous experiences in learning German, exposure to the target language, motivation, learning strategies and difficulties encountered, when learning German at the tertiary level. Then, on the basis of interviews with five lecturers of German, teaching experience in the context under study is explored, problems and successful teaching strategies discussed.