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This article argues that evaluation of professional development (PD) requires a focus on student learning and an evidential baseline to enable practitioners and school leaders to determine the impact of the PD in which they are engaged. Several models of evaluating PD are briefly considered and it is suggested that most of these enable programme developers or commissioners to evaluate the impact of what they offer. However, many still struggle with evaluating the impact of PD and are looking for practical yet rigorous ways to achieve this. This paper suggests how this can be achieved, thus enabling schools to know and demonstrate that PD has had an impact, whilst also offering a powerful method to raise both the quality of learning – for adults and students – and student outcomes. In so doing, an approach to impact evaluation is presented. The main findings of the Effective Practices in Continuing Professional Development project are drawn upon to illustrate how this approach to impact evaluation can be deployed. The key lessons learned in relation to effective PD and impact evaluation are outlined. The model outlined gives importance to establishing an evidential baseline and impact picture that supports both adult and student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – There is little research addressing the delivery of training for health professionals who are interested in using cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) techniques as an adjunct to their current role. This paper describes the establishment and evaluation of a CBT training course to develop CBT skills in staff working with people with intellectual disabilities in Trust healthcare settings. The course would enable staff to learn how they could incorporate these skills into their daily practice to help them understand and work more effectively with people with intellectual disabilities. Design/methodology/approach – A CBT training course was designed to teach staff the use of a number of basic and specific CBT techniques and principles that staff could use within their current roles. Specific issues in relation to people with intellectual disabilities were included, e.g. understanding cognitive deficits as well as cognitive distortions. The course ran for six sessions on a fortnightly basis, followed by a two-month follow-up session. Participants completed a pre- and post-assessment questionnaire and kept a reflective diary. Findings – The training clearly focused on teaching skills that were feasible for staff to use in their own work settings. The evaluations, especially from the reflective diaries and the post-course questionnaires clearly demonstrated that this aim was achieved. Originality/value – This was a pilot study as there has been no previously published evidence of using this approach within intellectual disabilities services. A further training course has been planned to continue evaluating the effectiveness of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of using the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method, used to assess relationship patterns and interpersonal schemas, within a small group of men who had intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The relationship anecdote paradigm interview, with minor adaptation, was used to collect material from participants necessary to generate a CCRT. CCRTs formulated in the study are described and consideration is given to the potential clinical application of CCRT method in this patient group. Design/methodology/approach – A small sample of four men with IDD was taken from a medium-low secure forensic service. Initial interviews, necessary to elicit narrative anecdotes for CCRT formulation, were conducted at the start of a psychotherapeutic treatment study. Trained judges completed a CCRT formulation for each participant. Findings – Participants in the study were able to provide personal information necessary to formulate a CCRT. Unexpected common themes were shared in participants who had committed contact sexual offences, this differed from a participant with autistic spectrum disorder who had committed a non-contact sexual offence. The CCRT method can be feasibly used in a mild IDD population. The CCRT method is clinically relevant and provides an opportunity for the exploration of clinical micro-theories related to interpersonal schemas found in offenders who have IDD. Originality/value – This is the first study, to our knowledge, reporting results of the CCRT method with adults who have mild intellectual disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the establishment and success of the Glasgow and London Mechanics' Institutes in 1823, the mechanics'-institute movement began to spread across the whole of Britain and by 1850 there were at least 600 such institutions. Historians have argued that many of them were short-lived and the movement as a whole made little contribution to working-class adult education. This paper provides evidence to the contrary, looking specifically at the distribution of the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes in both the emerging industrial towns and rural communities between 1838 and 1890. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current changes to policy around higher education in the United Kingdom are leading to an increasingly marketised system. As funding is transferred from the United Kingdom government to the individual student, universities will be required to pay more attention to marketing. This paper draws on the literature relating to marketing of services to assess the extent to which higher education marketing addresses issues of covenant, quiddity and representation. Using a mixed sample of universities and associated further education colleges who provide higher education opportunities, this research investigates the marketing strategies of different types of higher education institution. Differences identified include the extent to which reputation, educational experience, research and student life are used in marketing. We conclude that newer universities and further education colleges appear to be more greatly influenced by contemporary government policy agenda than are the older more traditional institutions, which continue to trade largely on their established strong reputations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘applied track’ in UK further education has been used to refer to the applied A level, the vocational, coursework-based version of the traditional academic A level. Vocational and coursework-based courses are often criticised for being easier than academic courses, for only attracting students who do not satisfy the requirements to take academic courses and for not developing in students the skills they need to be successful in higher education. This paper considers the extent to which these criticisms may be justified and explores the reasons why students chose to take an applied A level. The study involved 666 students at a large, mixed sex sixth form college in the UK, who were taking both applied and academic A levels. Although statistical analysis showed that students on the applied course performed worse than students on two academic courses once their different GCSE scores had been accounted for, it was also found that the applied students were relatively well qualified, that they were generally well motivated and hard working, and that they were extremely satisfied with the course. Finally, it is suggested that perhaps universities are misguided in assuming that applied courses do not develop in students the skills that they need to be successful in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines data from three projects to explore the 'hidden costs' of participating in lifelong learning. Whilst other potential risks (financial for instance) are anticipated, those around family and friendship ties are usually not. Adult re-engagement with education can result in unexpected negative consequences for learners' existing relationships, something addressed in academic literature but rarely in official policy rhetoric. We draw upon data from the projects to demonstrate how these unanticipated risks are negotiated and the impact of this discursive practice on those involved. We discuss this sense of risk, and also concepts of entitlement to one aspect of lifelong learning, higher education (HE) amongst those traditionally excluded from it in the UK. Entry to HE alone does not secure either a sense of entitlement, or a reduction of risk in terms of social justice, viewed as a means of fairly redistributing opportunities to compete for credentials. For some non-traditional learners, their sense of a lack of entitlement and levels of loss and risk to identity increase as they participate in university. We conclude by discussing how these 'hidden costs' of lifelong learning are borne by learners and those closest to them, their parents, partners and peers, and how institutions may offer support through processes of transition to adult learner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of culture within Further Education Colleges (FECs) from the perceptions of 26 lecturers delivering Business Higher Education Programmes (BHEPs). It offers a brief overview of the history of both Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) in England, and how they have evolved. This then will provide an understanding of the perceived/real differences between FE and HE culture, and whether these two cultures can merge together, or will become 'hybrids,' as suggested by Parry and Thompson. The study will in fact show that the culture of HE in FE (in England) is similar to that of an 'Exclave,' but is developing within this, a culture which might be viewed as an 'Enclave.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Anglican clergymen in England contributed significantly to the development of archaeology and local history as, first, subjects for polite study, but secondly as academic disciplines at the heart of the university extension and extra-mural movements. Initially working as lone antiquarian scholars, clergymen formed networks amongst themselves and the gentry, dominated the emerging national and county societies, and moved into university work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the establishment of formal courses for adults. With their broad Oxbridge education and ready-made audiences, clergymen disseminated 'safe' secular knowledge via the tutorial class. But this contribution had diminished by the mid-twentieth century, by which time the education of the clergy had become more narrowly focused upon vocation, and as new academic posts facilitated the establishment of mainstream university Departments of Archaeology and Local History. This paper explores the contribution of the Anglican clergy to the education of adults in the period c.1750-1960 and suggests reasons for its initial strength and eventual decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the educational experiences of a specific group of refugees, namely academic women refugees who were members of various branches of the International Federation of University Women, and who came to Britain under the auspices of the British Federation of University Women from 1933. As a result of voluntary or forced migration some 400 such women from Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria sought entry to Britain following Hitler's accession to power in Germany in 1933. The help they received from the specially formed Emergency Refugee Committee of the British Federation of University Women, not only in gaining entry to the country but in refashioning their pre-migration educational and academic achievements, is looked at in detail, and the extent to which the women were able to retrain, re-qualify or complete training courses curtailed by political events and migration is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD), also known as Dyspraxia in the United Kingdom (U.K.), is a developmental disorder affecting motor co-ordination. In the past this was regarded as a childhood disorder, however there is increasing evidence that a significant number of children will continue to have persistent difficulties into adulthood. Despite this, there remains little information as to how the difficulties might present at this stage, and additionally the impact on every day functioning. As young people move into further and higher education there is a need for screening and assessment tools. Such tools allow for identification of these difficulties, access to support, and clarification of areas where appropriate support needs to be targeted. This paper describes the first adult screening tool for DCD. The development and the results from testing this tool in two countries, Israel and the U.K. are outlined and the implications for its use in further and higher education discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The issue of levels of participation in post-compulsory education has been emphasised by the current policy initiatives to increase the age to which some form of participation is compulsory. One of the acknowledged weaknesses of research in the field of children's intentions with regard to participation is the lack of longitudinal data. This paper offers a longitudinal analysis using the Youth Survey from the British Household Panel Survey. The results show that most children can express intentions with regard to future participation very early in their secondary school careers and that these intentions are good predictors of actual behaviour five years later. Intentions to stay on are more consistent than intentions to leave and most children who finally leave at 16 have at some point said they want to remain in education post-16. The strongest association with participation levels is attainment at GCSE. However, there are also influences of gender and parental background and these remain, even after attainment is held constant. The results show the value of focusing on intentions for participation at a very early stage of children's school careers and also the importance of current attempts to reform curriculum and assessment for the 14–19 age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education (HE) is one of the routes that refugees who come to the UK from professional and highly educated backgrounds can re-establish their lives and professional identities. This research follows up a group of such refugees who were on a programme designed to support refugees gain access to HE or appropriate employment. The findings highlight the challenges facing the group over the three-year period since the course finished, and the long and often complicated journey into HE. The paper uses Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital and habitus to theorise the experiences of the refugees. It is suggested that an understanding of HE and the UK employment market as cultural fields enables a shift of focus away from refugees as 'deficient' and instead encourages reflection upon what these fields fail to give value to or recognise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses learner progression within further education (FE) colleges in England and the role that both internal college practices and wider system factors play in the transition of 16-19 year olds from school to further study and the workplace. Focusing on a sample of 118 learners from 19 lower level courses in a large general FE college and using a series of interviews with learners and 23 of their tutors, this paper raises issues about how far current policy levers promote the concept of progression and how inclusive practices are in FE colleges. The article concludes by suggesting that changes need to be made at both institutional and national policy levels in order to ensure effective learner progression from school, through further education to employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our primary objective in this paper is revisit a debate that was articulated 25 years ago in this journal in which it was argued that the idea of meeting needs in adult and continuing education is a myth. We extend the original analysis of need and apply it to the case of educational research. We look at the policy context, which has, in the intervening period, increasingly reflected the neo-liberal emphasis upon accountability and measurement. Taking into account the discussion stimulated by Hargreaves and followed through by Tooley on the supposed 'poverty' of educational research in the UK, we show how the discourse of need has been sustained. Using the Transforming Learning Cultures (TLC) project in the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) as an exemplar, we show that, despite the constraints that are imposed upon researchers by the funding and accountability frameworks of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the researchers on that project have nonetheless made significant and important contributions in the field that they have researched. By way of outcomes, we argue for an approach to the commissioning of educational research from bodies such as the ESRC that will allow researchers to frame their projects in ways that do not meet current prescriptions. In conclusion, we suggest that what is needed is a greater level of trust which will allow researchers to set the research agenda themselves, rather than be driven by the needs identified and specified by policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines research undertaken at a Northern UK university in partnership with a local further education college. The research was underpinned by reference to national policies, government strategies and the findings of others in the field, and involved the collection and analysis of interview and questionnaire data from apprentices and employers; an examination of the local and regional skills profile; liaison with the sector skills council; and the development of a new form of qualification. The outcome of the research was the development of a pilot Higher Level Apprenticeship scheme as a progression route for Level 3 Motor Vehicle apprentices, which combined both academic and professional qualifications and which met the identified Level 4 needs of this group of learners. This research has highlighted not only the need for a new form of work-based progression but has also recognised the direction which such a programme should take as an employer-led and customer-driven course, thus providing wider relevance across the higher education sector than simply its application to its local setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's National Adult Learning Survey has emphasised that graduates are more likely than other groups of people to engage in further learning and to be motivated by the intrinsic nature of the subject matter. However, beyond this we know relatively little about the learning of graduates as a specific group. In particular, we know very little about how experiences of higher education affect attitudes towards learning in the years after graduation. To start to redress this gap, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with 90 graduates from six different UK higher education institutions, five years after they completed their first degree. It argues that, in the case of many of these young adults, the influence of higher education on further learning was exerted at three levels in relation to: the process of learning; the construction of learner identities; and understandings of the relationship between learning and the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a model developed by Brookfield (1995), a deliberately reflective approach is taken in this paper to the relationship between the author's earlier work in a department of adult education and her current teaching on a course for new university lecturers. As increasing numbers of mature students are being encouraged into universities, she wonders whether the principles and practices of adult education have a place in the pedagogic practices of higher education. She summarises the development of adult education departments in British universities, and draws attention to different pedagogic approaches in adult and higher education. Looking through various 'lenses', the author concludes that there is a need for a new professional agenda in higher education - where commonality and difference provide the starting points for mutual exploration and self-understanding - and that the traditions of adult education have a significant contribution to make to this agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this short paper has been to draw attention to the potential for professional extension and advancement for which the mentoring of trainee teachers can provide a strong foundation. The context in which I explore these issues is that of the college sector in the UK (variously termed 'further education' [FE] 'post-compulsory education {and training}' [PCE{T}] or 'the learning and skills sector' [LSS]). The mentoring of new entrants to teaching in this sector has assumed major significance consequent to two important policy developments. These have been, respectively, the introduction by the Government of compulsory training for college teachers in 2001 and, in 2003, a strikingly critical report by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) of certain aspects of such training, following a 'survey inspection' conducted during that year. In particular, Ofsted recorded very serious reservations regarding the adequacy and consistency of the mentoring being provided for trainees and recommended that this area be the subject of urgent attention on the part of both training institutions and colleges as workplaces. The deficiencies in subject specific mentoring were viewed especially critically. However, for a number of reasons which I review, the college sector has not presently been able to claim that a large pool of suitably qualified and motivated mentors has been coming forward to take up the challenges presented by the Government and Ofsted. It may be, therefore, that a more active promotion of the further professional opportunities to which mentoring has the potential to open doors should be a new priority for the sector. I contend that such opportunities are in fact both numerous and interesting, and wider awareness of them may in itself provide the kind of incentive to engage with mentoring which seems thus far often to be lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of data from six years of the British Household Panel Survey (1998-2003) has been used to look at variances in take-up of part time learning opportunities by adults over time in the UK and, separately, by its four constituent nations. The paper provides a useful backdrop of 'facts and figures' on patterns of take-up in part time education and training over the first six years of Labour Governments. Whilst the home-international comparisons show differences in terms of general levels of participation they show similar patterns of participation along gender and class lines. Apart from evidencing a steep upturn in the take-up of home-based learning amongst women, a persistent finding was how little had changed over this six year period in terms of removing barriers that position some as disadvantaged and others as advantaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the range of institutional strategies which it might be appropriate and desirable to have in place to support and enhance the effective mentoring of trainee teachers in UK colleges of further education. The high degree of importance being attached to mentoring by various government bodies, with reference to initial teacher education in particular, is emphasised, as is the rapidity with which this state of affairs has been arrived at. The notion of an institutional architecture for mentoring activity is proposed; this comprises features ranging from those structures necessary to allow certain basic mentoring activities, to those with a more strategic and longer-term significance. In conclusion, the likely costs of failing to acknowledge the need to build institutional capabilities for mentoring alongside developing individual mentors' skills are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Literacies for Learning in Further Education (LfLFE) research project has been funded for three years from January 2004 as part of Phase 3 of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme in the UK. The project involves collaboration between two universities and four further education (FE) colleges. The intention is to investigate students’ everyday literacy practices and explore ways of mobilizing these to enhance their learning on college courses. The LfLFE project does not view literacy as a set of individual skills and competences alone, but as emergent and situated in particular social contexts (Barton et al., 2000). As such, literacy practices are not static or bounded spatially or temporally. A central concern for the project is to understand how the literacy demands of college life and being a student relate to students’ other literacy practices. As part of the work of the project, the group is undertaking a ‘mapping’ of the literacy demands associated with student learning across a wide range of FE courses. This paper explores the methodological debates in planning and operationalizing this mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines recent empirical work on the lived experience of learners in post‐compulsory education. The starting point is a brief examination of the socio‐economic context of the sector. Despite the sophistication of analyses of learning cultures, a more radical approach is needed. Failure to do so renders these analyses amenable to appropriation by ‘new labour’ modernisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the findings of a small qualitative research project that examined the experiences of a group of adult learners attending a basic skills programme in the English Midlands during the late 1990s. It explores patterns of participation on such programmes and illustrates that early life course experiences can shape changing dispositions towards learning and forms of (dis)engagement from formal provision. The concept of reflexivity is used to help describe the differing contributions that structural and agential processes make to this patterning of engagement with learning. Such an approach is posited as a development of the concepts of learning identity and learning career that have recently been used to understand participation in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship in education beyond school has developed largely outside university departments of education, and has rarely engaged systematically with the study of education in schools. The paper concentrates on three areas: adult education, higher education, and further education. The development of the extra-mural tradition meant that adult education was less an object of scholarly study than a means of spreading scholarship to the wider population, with important exceptions such as historical studies. Since the 1970s, the volume of research and postgraduate education in adult education in British universities has grown considerably. The study of higher education was marginal until the 1960s; its subsequent development was relatively slow until the 1990s, when the quality of university teaching came under wider external scrutiny. The study of further education and vocational training is characterised by disciplinary fragmentation, with much activity taking place in departments of psychology, economics, sociology and management, as well as in those former polytechnics that specialised in training further education teachers. The rise of integrative concepts such as lifelong learning suggest greater potential for crossdisciplinary scholarship that can engage the diverse body of those interested in teaching and research about this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on one aspect of a UK/Belgian research study on the access of adults to university. As a full time adult student, lectures and seminars form a central part of being a student yet adults' experiences of learning at university is a relatively under-researched area. For part-time students the experiences are different. Many in this study had been out of formal education for a long time. How do they adjust to an academic culture? What are their attitudes towards different forms of assessment and teaching styles. The attitudes of lecturers towards teaching adult students are also explored. How do different academic cultures impact upon their attitudes as teachers of adult learners? Has the presence of adults changed their teaching style? For adult learners external factors, such as class, gender, ethnicity and private lives, also shape their experiences of learning at university in a complex interaction between structure and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores contested concepts about lifelong learning. Training being provided to facilitate capacity-building in area regeneration programs; British government's policy papers on lifelong learning for active citizenship, equal opportunities and social inclusion; Problems concerning definitions of social capital.

Argues for public funding of non-formal, adult education in Great Britain. Benefits enjoyed by the participants of non-formal adult education; Politicians' view of education; Education's contribution to national prosperity; Importance of vocational educational opportunities to economic success; British government's preparation of a White Paper on Lifelong Learning.

Opinion. Discusses the changes in adult higher education (HE) in Great Britain. National Institute of Adult Continuing Education's (NIACE) policy paper in higher education; Principles and frameworks for any proposed higher education system; NIACE conferences on the report; Definition of higher education and funding; Distinguishing characteristic of HE; Proposed model based on principles of access and quality.

The article reports that the periodical "Studies in the Education of Adults," will publish a symposium in 2007 on the theme of learning through the lifecourse: connecting identity, agency and structure, led by Kathryn Ecclestonc, University of Nottingham, Great Britain. All papers submitted for the symposium will be refereed in line with the normal procedure and criteria for studies. In addition, papers will be selected for their relevance and contribution to the symposium theme. The complex links between learners sense of identity, their capacity to act autonomously and the effects of structural conditions on their success in different parts of the education and training system have long been an interest of researchers in all sectors. The Autumn 2007 edition of the periodical will therefore seek to make a contribution to a debates in relation particularly to the education of adults. The layout of quotations and notes follow the conventions shown in the current number of the periodical.

The author presents his views on the analysis of the development of further education in Great Britain. He comments on the drawn data that examined the complex policy content of the country's education sector. The author has picked two papers which formed the basis of further cross-cultural research in five countries that offered important problems and has suggested resolutions that could well apply in social and political contexts.

Presents the text of separate response of the Institute of Horticulture (IoH) to the British House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology Inquiry and to the Learning & Skills Council Consultation Paper "Investing in Skills: Taking Forward the Skills Strategy." Role of the IoH in pursuing careers in production, environmental and social horticulture; Responsibility of the British government to promote the importance of horticultural products; Need for the government to provide coherent and reliable funding for adult education on horticulture.