Learning outcomes in higher education: assumptions, positions and the views of early-career staff in the UK system

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (12) ◽  
pp. 2250-2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marios Hadjianastasis
Author(s):  
Kirsten Forkert ◽  
Ana Lopes

This article examines unwaged posts at UK universities, using recent examples of advertised job posts. While unpaid work is common in the UK higher education system, unwaged posts are not. The posts under scrutiny in this article differ from traditional honorary titles as they target early career academics, who are unlikely to have a paid position elsewhere, rather than established scholars. The article contextualizes the appearance of these posts in a climate of increasing marketization of higher education, entrenching managerialism in higher education institutions, and the casualization of academic work. We also discuss resistance to the posts, arguing that the controversy surrounding unpaid internships in the creative industries created a receptive environment for resisting unwaged posts in academia. We analyze the campaigns that were fought against the advertisement of the posts, mostly through social media and the University and College Union. We explore the tactics used and discuss the advantages and limitations of the use of social media, as well as the role of trade unions in the campaigns against these posts, and we reflect on what future campaigns can learn from these experiences.


Author(s):  
Anna Bull

The majority of research on reporting of sexual violence and harassment has focused on reasons why women don’t report their experiences rather than examining why they do. This article takes this discussion into the higher education setting, drawing on interviews with 16 students and early career researchers in the UK who considered or attempted to report staff sexual misconduct to their institution and analysing their motivations for doing so. The motivations are broken down into two aspects: the immediate catalysts that triggered the report or disclosure, and the deeper rationales for why interviewees made this decision. Separating catalysts and rationales for reporting in this way allows different levels of decision-making over time to become clearer. Interviewees’ catalysts for reporting included leaving their institution, needing an extension on an assignment, protecting their own physical safety, or being validated by a third party. By contrast, the main rationale that interviewees gave for trying to report staff sexual misconduct was to prevent other women being targeted. Further rationales identified were fighting injustice and reporting for academic or career-related reasons. Higher education institutions’ policies and practices in this area need to take into account these different levels of decision-making around disclosure and reporting.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>There is much less research examining the reasons why victim-survivors do not report sexual violence and harassment than the reasons why they do report.</li><br /><li>In this study of students and staff who reported staff sexual misconduct to their university, the main rationale that interviewees gave for trying to report was to prevent other women being targeted.</li><br /><li>The article argues that separating catalysts for reporting from rationales makes visible different levels of decision-making over time.</li></ul>


Author(s):  
Theresa Federici

This chapter illustrates an innovative and easily adoptable approach to ensuring assessment is constructively aligned to course content and intended learning outcomes in foreign language teaching. Referring to two small-scale case studies in UK universities, this chapter presents the PRIME model of assessment design. This holistic and process-driven approach to assessment, in which the content and format of assessment is developed alongside the content and learning outcomes of the course, guides students towards becoming reflective language learners and creates greater learner autonomy. Grounded in, but not exclusive to, the academic standards for higher education in the UK, and in current research into the place and purpose of assessment in undergraduate courses, this chapter illustrates an approach adopted to create meaningful assessment in language degree programmes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Schleyer ◽  
Rui Fang Duan ◽  
Julian Williamson ◽  
Nicola Stacey

There is an indication that across higher-education engineering courses in the UK, the extent and content of risk education varies, and is not always commensurate with the level of risk that undergraduates could be responsible for in their subsequent professional lives. Consequently, a project was set up to incorporate risk education into the curriculum of an undergraduate engineering course in a UK university for the 2005/06 academic year. A set of learning outcomes was developed from a template of topic areas in consultation with key stakeholders. These learning outcomes formed the basis of a questionnaire that was designed to assess students' awareness of risk issues. This paper describes the development of the questionnaire, the interpretation of the results, and how the questionnaire will be used to help achieve the desired learning outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flavio Azevedo ◽  
Meng Liu ◽  
Charlotte Rebecca Pennington ◽  
Madeleine Pownall ◽  
Thomas Rhys Evans ◽  
...  

The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has called for evidence on the roles that different stakeholders play in reproducibility and research integrity. Of central priority are proposals for improving research integrity and quality, as well as guidance and support for researchers. In response to this, we argue that there is one important component of research integrity that is often absent from discussion: the pedagogical consequences of how we teach, mentor, and supervise students through open scholarship. We justify the need to integrate open scholarship principles into research training within higher education and argue that pedagogical communities play a key role in fostering an inclusive culture of open scholarship. We illustrate these benefits by presenting A Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT), an international grassroots community whose goal is to provide support, resources, visibility, and advocacy for the adoption of principled, open teaching and mentoring practices, whilst generating conversations about the ethics and social impact of higher-education pedagogy. Representing a diverse group of early-career researchers and students across specialisms, we advocate for greater recognition of and support for pedagogical communities, and encourage all research stakeholders to engage with these communities to enable long-term, sustainable change.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992092566
Author(s):  
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer ◽  
Kate Mattocks

In this article, we examine the career development and progression of Early Career Academics in the discipline of political science in the UK. The primary focus is to explore whether and to what extent career development is gendered. With data from a survey of Early Career Academics as well as semi-structured interviews, the article shares personal experiences of professional development, exposing the challenges women in the profession face, including the gendered aspects of networking and mentoring, as well as broader issues of isolation, exclusion, and discrimination. These challenges are compounded by the structural contexts of UK Higher Education.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-132
Author(s):  
Michael Russell
Keyword(s):  

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