Call 6 Project title

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Call 6 Project title

• The UWIC Graduate Towards a Schools Support
  Framework

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Joint Project

• Welsh School of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure
  Management Phil Coleman
• Cardiff School of Education Paul Thomas and
  Sharne Watkins
• UWIC Learning and Teaching support Unit Gabriel
  Jezierski

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Project Aims

• To establish issues relating to Study Skills and
  Study Support in the WSHTL and the Cardiff School
  of Education
• To establish current policies and practices in
  these two Schools and identify strengths and
  areas for development
• To produce a proposed framework for Study Skills
  and Support for adoption within the two schools
  and across UWIC to improve the student learning
  experience and standards of achievement

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Background to the Project

• Discussion Paper Towards a Model of the UWIC
  Graduate the need for student support
• Internal and External QA procedures identifying
  areas for development of students skills
  (External examiner reports, Estyn inspection,
  student feedback and student evaluation)

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• Increasing diversity of the student population in
  UWIC as we continue to widen access
• Students bring very different skills and
  qualifications with them
• Their respective courses, and future employers,
  seemingly demand an ever increasing range of
  skills

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Examples of the current situation

• CSOE the need for very good literacy and ICT
  skills
• Welsh School of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure
  Management range of students with differing ICT
  competence

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Student Centred Approaches

• Limit on the amount of time that tutors can
  devote to supporting students individual needs
• How can we effectively enable students to manage
  their own learning?
• Once students have been diagnosed as needing
  support what happens next?

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LTSU involvement

• Ongoing involvement in this area of development
• Development of the new Learning Centres
• General knowledge and awareness of current LT
  matters both within and outside UWIC

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Benefit to the Schools and to UWIC

• Results will serve to inform and enhance student
  experiences and serve to inform practice across
  UWIC.

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3 Milestones
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• Research the current position including tutor
  questionnaire, literature review and scrutiny of
  external examiner reports
• Analysis of data
• Production of a recommended framework

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Reviewing the Literature

• Many students entering degree courses do not have
  the necessary study skills to achieve good marks
  in both exams and coursework
• (Durkin and Main, 2002).

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Problems include

• evaluating arguments
• essay structure
• referencing
• (Swain, 2003 Ng et al, n.d)

• essay construction
• punctuation
• spelling
• grammar
• oral presentations

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Strategies used

• Peer support
• Centralised courses
• Computer Assisted Learning
• Increase in student contact time
• Winfield, 1997 Swain, 2003 Ng et al, n.d.

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The issues

• Students reticence in developing help-seeking
  strategies
• School leaversare a particularly problematic
  group of first year students across the
  university system who are found to berelatively
  less certain of their roles than older students,
  less diligent in their study habits, and less
  academically orientated. (McInnis et al, 1995
  10)

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• Adopting a deep approach to studying has been
  associated with higher quality learning
• Student centred approaches encourage deep
  learning
• Fazey Lawson, 2000 Prosser et al, 2000 de la
  Harpe
• et al, 1997

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• Course designers should consider the design of
  their courses to guide students towards a self
  managed approach to study
• Bannister Hanson, 2002
• Study skills should take place within the context
  of the subject being taught
• Durkin Main, 2002 de la Harpe et al, 1997

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• Students need to be trained in self-assessment
  and this should be conducted co-operatively
  between lecturer and student
• Dochy, Rijdt and Dyck, 2002 Biggs (in de la
  Harpe and Radloff, 1999)

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What the literature tell us

• Universities should review their methodologies by
  adopting more student centred approaches
  (Winfield, 1997)
• A whole institution approach incorporating both
  generic and discipline based courses to support
  students is needed.
• To enable students to achieve their full
  potential, institutions need to provide a
  scaffold for students to progress.

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The Research the questionnaire

• CSOE
• 48 questionnaires administered to academic staff
  34 responses received (71)
• WSHTLM
• 35 questionnaires administered to academic staff
  25 responses received (71)
• (Remarkable correlation between the 2 schools)

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Results of the questionnaire

• Main weaknesses identified by tutors were
• Incorrect use of the apostrophe
• General Spelling errors
• Incorrect use of punctuation
• Poor sentence construction
• Poor use of grammar, e.g. double negatives, use
  of tenses, subject/verb agreement
• Inability to express ideas in clear sequence

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Other issues

• Poor referencing skills
• Students over the age of 30 seem to have better
  literacy skills
• Colloquial writing in academic assignments
• Word confusion, e.g. practice and practise

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Main academic support issues identified on u/g
courses

• Essay writing style and structure
• Input on grammar, punctuation and spelling
• Referencing
• Ability to construct a sustained argument many
  students produce a mosaic of other peoples ideas
• Expectations of writing style (academic register)

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• Encourage an independent approach to learning
• Complete module on how we learn
• Mini module on research techniques
• Note taking
• ICT skills, particularly lacking with older
  students
• Poor attendance

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Main academic support issues identified on p/g
courses

• English as an additional language (EAL)
• Referencing
• Help to further refine formal writing/structure
• Research skills

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What measures should be implemented?

• Audits and resulting provision to meet specific
  targets
• Language classes
• Face to face feedback on assignments
• Handouts highlighting common errors and
  corrections
• Small group support and an open resource room

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• Thorough student profiling
• Study skills package on line and publicised
• More weighting on literacy aspects of assignments

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School or UWIC provision?

• Almost equal split in thought across the 2 school
• CSOE tutors
• School 19, UWIC 17
• WSHTLM tutors
• School 8, UWIC 10

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Why?

• UWIC
• Issues across all UWIC courses
• More cost effective and provides links across
  schools
• Resources better at UWIC level

• School
• English expertise in the school (CSOE)
• Direct contact with tutor
• Addressed in the context of the subject
• More focused approach for the needs of CSOE
  students (QTS Standards)
• Role model as teachers

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Other comments

• Support for mature students
• Need for a culture change to eradicate comments
  from external examiners
• Quality of post-graduate students and the content
  of the first degree is not always what we might
  expect
• Must cater for students needs

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Scrutiny of external examiner reports main issues

• Variability in highlighting errors on students
  work and feedback forms
• The quality of written English was poor in some
  cases
• Issues with student use of academic referencing
• Provide support by whatever means possible to
  improve standards

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• students who are signalling at the start of the
  programme they have gaps in their grammatical
  knowledge
• difficulties that can occur with ethnic
  minorities whose first language may not be
  English should be given further consideration
• Lack of analysis/evaluative skills at level 3 and
  MSc

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CSOE pilot results

• Marked improvement in student performance
• Model for further development next academic year

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Conclusions and the way forward

• 2 support systems could operate in parallel and
  complement each other to raise standards

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UWIC- wide provision to include

• Referencing skills
• Use of an appropriate academic register
• Formatting of papers/reports
• Research techniques
• ICT skills
• How to study, how to learn

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School provision to include

• Discrete language support (use of the apostrophe,
  use of punctuation, sentence construction, use of
  grammar, sequencing of ideas)
• Address specific course requirements and
  expectations
• Careful auditing of students skills and
  resulting support to further enhance these.

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