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This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal investigation into the effectiveness of skills education programmes within business and management undergraduate degree courses. During the period between 2005 and 2011, a large business school in the south-west of England was developed and implemented two distinct approaches to skills education. An analysis of final grades for the core modules for students within the business and management field exposes a clear divide in success between those who participated in an integrated skills programme during their first year and the comparatively poorer performance of those who attended either a stand-alone skills module or, in some cases, no skills module at all. The conclusion of the paper highlights the measurable value of privileging skills in the curriculum-planning process and ensuring that skills which educators agree to be important are practised in context by learners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the context of the international problem of 'early school leaving', this paper explores the issue of sustained participation in upper secondary education in England. It focuses in particular on the position of middle attainers, who constitute a large proportion of the cohort and whose progress will be vital in realising the government's goal of 'Raising the Participation Age' to 18 by 2015. The paper draws on evidence from national research undertaken as part of the Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training in England and Wales and analysis of New Labour and Coalition policy between 2000-2012. It uses a three-year local study of 2400 14- and 16-year-olds in an established school/college consortium to illustrate the effects of policy and practice on middle attainers. We argue that this important group of young people was 'half-served' by New Labour, because of its incomplete and contradictory 14-19 reforms, and is now being 'overlooked' by Coalition policy because of its emphasis on high attainers. We conclude by suggesting a range of measures to support the 14+ participation, progression and transition of middle attainers in the English education and training system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the findings of a study designed to explore qualification users’ perceptions and experiences of reliability in the context of national assessment outcomes in England. The study consisted of 17 focus groups conducted across six sectors of qualification users: students, teachers, trainee teachers, job-seekers, employers and employees. Each qualification user group discussed a series of issues concerned with the reliability of grades awarded at the completion of compulsory (age 16) and post-compulsory (age 18) education. Findings suggested that there were some notable differences between the participating groups in relation to their experiences of assessment reliability and their inclinations to trust the reliability of assessment outcomes. For example, teachers shared a number of experiences of suspected and actual error in the production of students’ grades, and of securing subsequent grade changes for their students. In the light of these experiences, teachers were disinclined to accept at face value the reliability of assessment outcomes. Among other groups, assessment outcomes were generally regarded as trustworthy and reliable measures of academic ability. However, without access to information about assessment reliability, participants were unaware that reliability can be undermined by random measurement error. Participants discussed measurement errors in relation to student well-being, facets of the test and the test situation and environment, but such errors were deemed to be an inevitable part of test-taking and as having limited impact on the reliability of assessment outcomes. It is concluded that efforts to enhance public understanding of assessment reliability, therefore, may be complicated by tensions between traditional, specialist conceptions of assessment reliability and what is perceived as relevant and useful by qualification users. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]