Detecting Uncertainty Predicting Outcome
Lalage Sanders Cardiff Metropolitan University
This paper describes two studies designed to assess the efficacy of two psychometric tests administered at the beginning of the academic year to predict end of year outcome. Given the critical role of retention across the sector there are clear advantages in identifying those students who may later struggle to pass the year at the first attempt. If such students can be identified before they begin to disengage from their programmes then resources could be targeted to retrieve the situation at an early stage. Of the two measures reported here Academic Behavioural Confidence Scale and the Performance Expectation Ladder appeared to distinguish between those who would pass the year at the first attempt from those who would not. In one study there was also evidence of the way in which these measures can be used to measure disengagement over time.
Workshop: Potential.ly a Graduate – a survey for student self-awareness and action
Luke Millard Birmingham City University and Norbert Morawetz Potential.ly
The Graduate+ programme is a new high profile initiative at Birmingham City University to engage students in taking responsibility for the development of their employability skills. A key element of the programme that addresses students across diverse disciplines is the highly engaging ‘potential.ly’ questionnaire which assesses students’ personal preferences across 23 traits. The results of the questionnaire drive a range of practical interventions and student outcomes and are also used to help those students become more self-aware and successful.
This interactive session will outline the initial challenge development of the solution and how experiences and the need to bring diverse stakeholders together shapes future development of the system. It will show how questionnaire insights can be used to measure students’ self-awareness of their attributes and motivation. This has the opportunity of informing the provision of learning resources on university-wide level to meet the identified needs. In addition to institutional learning the presenters will also share best practice and lessons learned of user experience design for online questionnaires.
They liked it but did they learn anything? Challenges of measuring student outcomes associated with innovations in anatomy teaching
Ian Johnson University of Adelaide
New approaches to teaching are usually reported as having been well-received by students. However the extent to which they promote student learning outcomes is often unclear despite the latter often being the driver of the former. This session will review the author’s experience of four changes to the delivery of anatomy teaching at undergraduate level that were well-received by students but generally made no significant difference to learning outcomes. These findings will be used to highlight the challenges of designing studies to measure changes in learning outcomes associated with teaching innovations. Acknowledgement: Adelaide Education Academy Learning and Teaching Advancement Grant
Maximising Motivation: Enhancing student engagement through survey data
Louise Douse University of Bedfordshire
This paper aims to share how data from a combination of motivation based surveys can be used to provide a better understanding of the difficulties which Level 4 students in Performing Arts face with regard to engagement with and completion of “theory” related assessments. This will enable staff to develop a clear understanding of the transition needs of Level 4 students from a diverse range of FE learning backgrounds.
The project aims are to assess student levels of motivation and engagement. By assessing the students’ motivations for coming to university the survey informs the design of an online learning environment which aims to enable students to develop their skills in a variety of ways. In particular it aims to help students understand the ways in which short terms goals (i.e. assessment) link to long term motivations (career) so they better understand how theory underpins their entire learning journey.
Workshop: Exploring the relationship between pharmacy student’s learning beliefs and engagement in teaching and learning – how we can we support this?
Sarah Willis and Harsha Parmar The University of Manchester
The aim of this session is to understand how evaluation of learning styles and student engagement surveys can be used to explore learning beliefs that may underpin student engagement; and consider student support mechanisms to increase engagement in teaching learning and assessment activities.
Objectives include:
- Identify focal areas within your course that require further evaluation in relation to engagement in teaching learning and assessment
- Identify and critique potential activities that could be used to increase engagement in teaching learning and assessment activities
- Discuss methods for measuring the impact of a bridging intervention that you may choose to use to address student engagement in teaching learning and assessment within your course
An institutional approach to identifying current student’s ‘Career Readiness’
Joanne Ives Liverpool John Moores University.
This session aims to share the background and LJMU case study of the introduction in 2014 of a university wide annual ‘Career Readiness’ survey.
It will also discuss and illustrate how the survey data has already been used institutionally and at academic programme level to provide insight into current student career decision making and is helping to monitor and evaluate student employability support and identify future developments and curriculum enhancement interventions.
The session will discuss the institutional approach taken to establish the survey and challenges faced as well as the lessons learnt so far and also look at some of the data sets.
Following the introduction of the survey LJMU was invited to join the 3 year HEFCE Learning Gain project on Careers Registration.
